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FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT. 

From the French of Imbert de Saint-Amand. 
Each with Portrait, i2mo, $1.2^. 

THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD RE'GIME. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. 

THREE VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. 

CITIZENESS BONAPARTE. • X 

THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL. 

THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. 

FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. 

THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE. 

MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE. 

MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814. 

MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS. 

THE PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION. 

THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 

THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS. 

THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVill. (In Prepara- 
tion.) 



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THE 



Duchess of Angouleme 



AND THE 



TWO RESTORATIONS 



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IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND 

TRANSLATED BY 

JAMES DAVIS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1892 






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iPijMWHP!!iy pea!«<^ g jw i .-«!jiiLit»j> i 

TBB LIBIUUI7 
Of C0N0RBS8 

WASHINQTOH 



COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 



CONTENTS 

PABT FIRST 
THE FIRST RESTORATION 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Calais ' 1 

II. COMPIEGNE 8 

III. Saint-Ouen 22 

IV. The Entry into Paeis , , . . 31 

V. The Allies , . . . . 41 

VI. The Court ,.. 51 

VII. The City . . 64 

VIII. The King ........ 76 

IX. Monsieur ...... = 93 

X. The Dukes of Angouleme and of Berry 99 

XL Madame 108 

XII. The Orleans Family 129 

XIII. The Family op Conde 141 

XIV. The Fete at the Hotel de Villi: 151 

XV. The Distribution op Flags , 161 

XVI. Saint-Denis 167 

XVII. The Beginning of 1815 179 

XVIII. The Return op Napoleon 188 

XIX. The Royal Assemblage 202 

V 



vi CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XX. The King's Departure 208 

XXI. Bordeaux 224 

XXII. London 245 

XXIII. Ghent 254 

FABT SECOND 

THE SECOND KESTORATION 

I. Louis XVIII.'s Return 262 

II. The Return op the Duchess 275 

III. General de Labedoyere 281 

IV. EoucHE 296 

V, Marshal Ney 310 

VI. The Death of Marshal Ney 325 

VII. Count be Lavalette 338 

VIII. Madame de Lavalette 352 

IX. The Beginning of 1816 372 

X. The Ashes of Louis XVII 384 

Conclusion 392 



The Duchess of Angouleme 



AND THE 



Two Restorations 



THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME AND 
THE TWO RESTORATIONS 

PART FIRST 

THE FIRST RESTORATION 



CALAIS 

FROM the return of Louis XVIII. to France 
until the arrival of the Duchess of Berry, the 
Duchess of Angouleme is the only woman who can 
be described as a woman of the Tuileries. It is she 
who attracts all eyes ; she who represents the legend 
of the Temple ; she who may be called the living 
poetry of the Restoration. As soon as the Duchess 
of Berry touches French soil, people turn more 
especially toward the young Neapolitan Princess. 
But from 1814 to 1816, the most important position 
at court belonged to the daughter of Louis XVI. 
We shall try to show her as she really was during 
these two years, and, in reviving her image, to 
animate also the scenes in which she lived, and the 
principal events in which she took a part. 

1 



THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



This history begins at Calais on the 24th of April, 
1814, at the moment when the Duchess of Angoul^me 
had just landed with Louis XVIII., the Prince of 
Conde, and the Duke of Bourbon. Between France 
and royalty a sort of " Lamourette kiss " had been 
exchanged. Credulous persons fancied that the iron 
age had gone, never to return ; that the golden age 
had come, and would be eternal. The sky is blue. 
A superb spring day makes all things radiant. Not 
a breath of air ruffles the glassy surface of the sea. 
No one thinks about present disasters, the mourning 
country, or the strangers who tread its sacred soil. 
To enthusiastic royalists, the Republic and the Em- 
pire are only an evil dream that vanishes at dawn. 
Emigres and purchasers of national property experi- 
ence the same exaltation. No one suspects the pro- 
found hatred which, at the end of three months, will 
divide minds that now seem to be in perfect accord. 
It is a sort of truce of God in the midst of social 
and political success. It is the eclogue, the idyl 
which precedes the tragedy. 

When, to the sound of bells and salvos of artillery, 
Louis XVIII. disembarks from the English ship, the 
Royal Sovereign^ and is seen leaning on the arm of 
the orphan of the Temple, as once before on the 
frozen plains of Lithuania, unanimous cheers break 
out, and there are tears in every eye. Sixteen of the 
inhabitants of Calais, elegantly dressed, come forward 
to draw the royal carriage with their own hands. 
The clergy appear led by a cure who had long been 



CALAIS ■ 3 

expatriated for having refused the constitutional oath. 
" Cur^," says the King, " after more than twenty 
years of absence, Heaven gives my children back to 
mC; Heaven gives me back to my children; come, 
let us thank God in His temple." The procession 
advances between a double row of national guards 
and troops of the line, and goes up the quays. All 
the vessels have their flags out, all the streets are 
sanded and strown with foliage, all the houses 
tapestried with verdure, and adorned with white ban- 
ners, all the women wear white frocks, v/ave their 
handkerchiefs, and scatter flowers. On reaching the 
church, the King, who walks under a canopy, seats 
himself in the centre of the choir. The Te Deum is 
intoned. The daughter of Louis XVI. unites her 
voice in the canticle of thanksgiving ; she is astonished 
that tears of joy can flow from her eyes. But she 
has seen her country once more ! 

After leaving the church, Louis XVIII. receives 
the civil and military authorities. He says to the 
mayor : " The people of Calais have never, since the 
time of Philip of Valois, ceased to give proofs of love 
and fidelity to their sovereigns ; I count on their 
attachment, as they may count on my protection." 
To the Christian Brothers he says: "Make good 
Christians, and you will have made good Frenchmen." 
The Duchess of Angoul^me listens to this speech 
gladly, for it is her whole political programme. The 
inhabitants of Calais decide that on the very spot 
where the King descended from his ship, they will 



THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



place a bronze plaque, on which shall be traced the 
imprint of his royal foot. Beside it they will raise a 
monument bearing the date, the 24th of April, 1814, 
made memorable in the annals of Calais by the 
arrival of the brother and the daughter of Louis XVI. 

The sight of the orphan of the Temple inspires 
general emotion of compassion. The words of Cha- 
teaubriand, published on the 30th of March, in 
his pamphlet, Buonaparte et les Bourbons, were 
recalled : " This young princess whom we have per- 
secuted, whom we have made an orphan, longs every 
day, in foreign palaces, for the prisons of France. 
She might have received the hand of a poAverful 
and glorious prince, but she preferred to unite her 
destiny with that of her cousin, a poor exile, pro- 
scribed because he was French, being unwilling to 
separate herself from the misfortunes of her family. 
All the world admires her virtues ; people from all 
parts of Europe follow her whenever she appears in 
public, and crown her with blessings ; we alone can for- 
get her ! When she left the country where she had 
been so unhappy, she turned back to look at it, and 
wept. The constant object of her love and her 
prayers, we hardly know that she exists. Ah ! may 
she at least find some consolation in promoting the 
welfare of her guilty country! This land bears lilies 
spontaneously ; they will grow again more beautiful 
than ever, since they have been sprinkled with the 
blood of the Martyr-King." 

Such is the theme repeated even to satiety at the 



CALAIS 5 

beginning of the reign of Louis XVIII. Accompa- 
nied by the Duchess of Angouleme, the Prince 
of Conde, and the Duke of Bourbon, Louis XVIII. 
leaves Calais on the 26th of April, and passes that 
night at Boulogne-sur-Mer. There he finds Marshal 
Moncey, Duke of Conegliano, that valiant warrior 
who, less than a month before, on the 30th of 
March, had defended the barrier of Clichy against 
the foreigners, and who now comes to meet and 
congratulate the head of the House of Bourbon. 
The King effusively embraces the marshal who had 
heroically defended Paris against the Allies, without 
whose aid royalty could not have been re-established. 
This is what is painful in the situation of the Bour- 
bons. The defeat of the foreigner would have been 
their ruin ; his victory has been their salvation. Had 
not Chateaubriand, sometimes so patriotic, just writ- 
ten : " Like Athens, Paris has seen aliens enter her 
walls who have respected her, in remembrance of her 
glorj^ and her great men. Eighty thousand conquer- 
ing soldiers have slept beside our fellow-citizens 
without disturbing their slumbers, offering them the 
least violence, or even singing a triumphant hymn. 
These are liberators, not conquerors. Immortal honor 
to the sovereigns who have been able to give the 
world such an example of moderation in victory ! How 
many injuries they had to revenge I But they have 
not confounded France with the tyrant who oppressed 
them. Hence they have already reaped the fruit of 
their magnanimity. They have been received by the 



6 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



inhabitants of Paris as if they were our real mon- 
archs, like French princes, like the Bourbons. We 
shall see them soon, the descendants of Henri IV. ; 
Alexander has jDromised it ; he remembers that the 
marriage contract between the Duke and the Duchess 
of Angouleme is deposited in the Russian archives. 
He has faithfully guarded for us the last public act 
of our legitimate goyernment; he has brought it 
back to our own archives, where, in our turn, we will 
preserve the account of his entry into Paris as one 
of the greatest and most glorious moments of his- 
tory." 

It must be confessed that although such language 
may be adroit, it is utterly undignified. Chateau- 
briand himself must have been sadly surprised, when, 
later on, he read once more these lines which he had 
written : " And what Frenchman could forget what 
he owes to the Prince Regent of England ; to that 
noble people which has done so much to deliver us ? 
Elizabeth's flags waved in the armies of Henri IV. ; 
they reappear among the battalions that restore Louis 
XVIII. to us. We are too sensitive to glory not to 
admire Lord Wellington, who has reproduced in such 
a striking manner the virtues and talents of our 
Turenne. Are we not moved to tears when, at the 
time of our retreat from Portugal, we see him prom- 
ising two guineas for every French prisoner brought 
to him alive ? By his moral strength, still more than 
by military discipline, he has miraculously suspended, 
on entering our provinces, both the resentment of 



CALAIS 7 

the Portuguese and the vengeance of the Spaniards ; 
in a word, it was under his standard that the first cry 
of ' Long live the King ! ' awakened our unhappy 
country." 

Such apologies are distressing. But at that period 
men were so weary of the despotism and wars of 
Napoleon, that many said, like the author of Buona- 
parte et les Bourbons : " Reflect that all the woes we 
experience, the loss of our property and our armies, 
the miseries of invasion, the massacre of our children, 
the trouble and tearing asunder of all France, and the 
loss of our liberties, are the work of a single man, and 
that we shall owe the contrary benefits to a single 
man. Let us hear then, from all sides, the cry which 
can save us ; the cry our fathers raised in defeat as 
well as in victory, and which, for us, will be the sig- 
nal of peace and happiness : Long live the King ! " 
This cry was everywhere heard along the route of 
Louis XVIIL, on the 26th of April, at Boulogne-sur- 
Mer ; on the 27th at Abbeville, and on the 28th at 
Amiens. On entering the cathedral of the chief 
town of Picardy, the sovereign exclaimed, as he 
looked with emotion at the immense multitude that 
cheered him : " What a magnificent day ! " During 
the banquet, several young girls, dressed in white, 
sang before the Duchess of Angouleme Gluck's fine 
chorus, which had been sung so often in honor of 
the Queen, her mother. The next day, the 29th of 
April, the daughter of Louis XYI. and Marie Antoi- 
nette arrived with Louis XVIIL at Compiegne. 



II 



COMPIEGNE 



AT an interval of only four years, from the 27tli of 
March, 1810, to April 29, 1814, the chateau of 
Compiegne presented two widely different spectacles. 
The decorations were hardly changed. Many of the 
same actors appeared, but the piece was altered from 
top to bottom. On the 27th of March, 1810, Napo- 
leon arrived at Compiegne with his young wife, and 
made arrangements there for the entry of the new 
Empress into Paris. On the 29th of April, 1814, 
Louis XVIII. arrived at Compiegne with the Duchess 
of Angouleme, and made arrangements there for his 
formal entry into his capital. The same marshals 
figured both times in the first rank of courtiers ; but 
in 1810 they called themselves Marshals of the Em- 
pire, and in 1814, Marshals of France. In 1810, the 
chief figure among them was Marshal Berthier, 
Prince of Wagram and Neufchatel, who, as ambas- 
sador extraordinary, had gone to fetch the Empress 
from Vienna. In 1814, it was the same Marshal 
Berthier, Prince of Wagram and Neufchatel, who 
was to felicitate the Most Christian King in the name 
of his colleagues. The flatteries, the ceremonial, the 
8 



COMPIEGNE 9 



incense, were the same ; nothing was changed except 
the idols. 

Louis XVIII. might have made but a single stage 
from Calais to Paris, but he would not. This mon- 
arch by divine right thought that a king should 
never wait, but that it became him to be waited for. 
Persuaded that his subjects ardently desired his re- 
turn, he took pleasure in deferring his triumphal 
entry into Paris, in order to augment the impatience 
and curiosity of the populace. He travelled by short 
stages. A slow and majestic progress suited his 
tranquil nature. 

People wondered how Napoleon's marshals would 
behave towards a sovereign whose manners, phys- 
ique, and character bore so little resemblance to 
those of their former master. " I feared the effect of 
his appearance," M. de Chateaubriand wrote in refer- 
ence to Louis XVIII. " I hastened to arrive before 
him at that city in which Joan of Arc fell into the 
hands of the English, and where a book was shown to 
me pierced by a bullet aimed at Bonaparte. What 
would people think of the aspect of the royal invalid 
who was to replace the bold rider who might have 
said with Attila : ' Grass never grows again where 
my horse's hoofs have been ' ? Without mission or 
inclination (the lot had fallen to me), I undertook a 
sufficiently difficult task; that of describing the 
arrival at Compiegne, and of representing the son of 
Saint Louis such as I had idealized him by the aid 
of the Muses." 



10 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

The marshals, also, were awaiting, and not without 
a certain anxiety, the moment when they should be 
confronted with the new sovereign on whom their 
destinies, titles, places at court, and military com- 
mands must henceforward depend. They met at 
Compiegne and decided that two of their number, 
Ney and Marmont, should go to meet and congratu- 
late the King and the Duchess of Angouleme. The 
two marshals met the sovereign and his niece on the 
hither side of the last station. The royal carriage 
stopped. The two marshals alighted. Ney, who 
was to be shot the following year, being the eldest, 
was spokesman. " The King replied in a gracious 
and benevolent manner," says Marmont in his Me- 
moirs, "but he closed his remarks with a phrase 
which, to me, seemed silly. Naturally he talked 
about his ancestor, Henri IV. It was the time to 
do so, doubtless, but this is what he said, in pointing 
to his hat, in which there was a small, white heron 
feather : ' Behold the plume of Henri IV. ! It shall 
always be in my hat.' I wondered what sense there 
was in these words, and whether any relic of the sort 
had been preserved by the royal family." 

In other respects, the impression Louis XVIII. pro- 
duced upon the Duke of Ragusa was favorable : 
" The sentiments of my childhood and early youth," 
he adds, "rekindled in full force and powerfully 
addressed my imagination. A sort of prestige accom- 
panied his illustrious race. From the most remote 
antiquity the origin of its grandeur has been un- 



COMPtEGNE 11 



known. From generation to generation, the trans- 
mission of its blood marks the epochs of our history, 
and serves to make them recognized. Its name is 
linked with all that is great in our country. His 
descent from a saint, who, six hundred years ago, was 
a man of superior intelligence and a great king, gave 
him a special halo. All these considerations acted 
powerfully on my mind." Comparing his two mas- 
ters with each other, the marshal goes on to say : " I 
had lived on an intimate footing with a mighty sov- 
ereign ; but his elevation was our own work. I enter- 
tained toward him the feelings naturally begotten 
by our former relations and the admiration his great 
qualities awakened ; but that chieftain was a man like 
myself before he became my superior ; while he who 
now appeared before me seemed a part of time and 
fate." 

Meantime the Avhole town of Compiegne was 
impatiently awaiting the King, whose approach was 
hourly announced by successive couriers. Suddenly 
the drums beat the general alarm. A carriage drawn 
by six horses entered the courtyard of the palace, 
and drew up before the door; it was not yet the King, 
but the Prince of Cond^ and his son, the Duke of 
Bourbon, father of the unfortunate Duke of Enghien, 
who preceded the monarch. A few minutes after- 
ward, Louis XVIII. and his niece arrived. Read 
the lyrical account published in the Journal des 
Debats by Chateaubriand : " When the King alighted 
from his carriage, assisted by the Duchess of Angou- 



12 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

leme, France seemed to behold its father once more. 
Neither the King nor Madame, neither the marshals 
nor the soldiers, could speak. They could express 
themselves only by tears. But still those least af- 
fected cried: 'Long live the King! Long live our 
father ! ' The King wore a blue coat, distinguished 
only by a star and epaulettes ; his legs were enveloped 
in large, red velvet gaiters bound with a narrow gilt 
ribbon. He walked with difficulty, but in a dignified 
and affecting manner; his figure was not at all ex- 
traordinary ; he had a superb head, and his glance 
was at once that of a king and a man of genius. 
When he sat down in his armchair, with his old- 
fashioned gaiters, and holding a cane across his 
knees, one could imagine himself beholding Louis 
Xiy. at the age of fifty." 

And the great royalist author, working himself up, 
perhaps a trifle in cold blood, exclaims as if in a 
burst of enthusiasm : " Such is the force of the legiti- 
mate sovereign in France ; such the magic pertaining 
to the name of king. A man arrives all alone from 
exile, despoiled of all, without attendants, guards, 
or riches ; he has nothing to give, and almost nothing 
to promise. He alights from his carriage, leaning on 
the arm of a young woman ; he shows himself to 
captains who have never seen him, and to grenadiers 
who hardly know his name. Who is this man? It is 
the King I Everybody is at his feet." 

Here the illustrious writer exaggerates. He w^ill 
recognize it himself, for in his Memoires (T Outre- 



COMPIEGNE 13 



Tomhe he will say : " What I wrote about the war- 
riors, and with a special end in view, was true with 
regard to the leaders ; but I lied about the soldiers." 
At Compiegne Louis XVIII. was no longer an out- 
law. He had a great deal to give and to promise. 
Never had any prince more petitioners and courtiers. 
The great dignitaries of the Empire stood in as much 
need of him as the chiefs of the army of Conde. He 
was not despoiled of all. He had honors, riches, 
rank, and decorations to bestow, and all who saluted 
him, saluted in him the rising sun. 

The Duchess of Angouleme, dressed in a simple 
white frock, attracted all eyes. Her head was cov- 
ered with a little English bonnet. Her features 
seemed a happy blending of those of her father and 
mother. An expression of gentle sadness witnessed 
to the sufferings she had endured with so much 
resignation. Even in her somewhat foreign costume 
evidences of her long exile might be seen. She con- 
stantly repeated : " How happy I am to be in the 
midst of the good French people I " 

As soon as Louis XVIII. had entered his apart- 
ments. Marshal Berthier, in his own name and that 
of the other marshals, addressed him in a discourse, 
which would not have been out of place in the 
mouth of an ardent royalist. He interspersed it 
with the wdiite plume of Henri IV. and besieged 
Paris, succored by its King : " Sire," said he, " after 
twenty-five years of uncertainty and storm, the 
French people have again delivered the care of their 



14 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULMe 



welfare to that dynasty which eight centuries of 
glory have consecrated in the history of the world 
as the most ancient in existence. As soldiers and as 
citizens, the marshals of France have seconded this 
outburst of the national will. Absolute confidence 
in the future, admiration for greatness in misfortune, 
all, even to ancient souvenirs, concur to excite in 
our warriors, who are the upholders of the glory of 
French arms, the transports Your Majesty has wit- 
nessed on your journey." 

Louis XVIII. replied to Berthier's harangue : " It 
pleases me to meet you, gentlemen, and I rely upon 
the sentiments of affection and fidelity which you 
express toward me in the name of the French army. 
I am happy to find myself amongst you." Then he 
stopped and said over again, emphasizing each word: 
"Happy, happy and proud." After saying a few 
kindly words to each of the marshals, Macdonald, 
Ney, Moncey, S^rurier, Mortier, Brune, Berthier, 
Lefebvre, Oudinot, and Kellermann, he stood up, 
although suffering from the gout. His principal 
officers approached to assist him, but, seizing the 
arms of the two marshals who were nearest, he 
exclaimed: "It is on you, marshals, that I always 
desire to lean ; come near and surround me ; you 
have always been true Frenchmen. I hope that 
France will have no further need of your swords. 
But if ever — which may God avert — we are forced 
to draw them, gouty as I am, I will march with you." 
"Sire," replied a marshal, "let Your Majesty con- 



COMPIEGNE 15 



sider us the pillars of the throne ! We will be its 
firmest supports." 

Dinner was served at eight o'clock. The King, 
the Duchess of Angouleme, the Prince of Cond^, the 
Duke of Bourbon, the marshals, the generals, the 
gentlemen-in-waiting to the King, the ladies of 
the Duchess of Angouleme, Mademoiselle de Mont- 
boisier, the daughter of Madame de Malesherbes, the 
Duchess of Duras, the Countess of Simiane, and sev- 
eral other distinguished personages, invited by order 
of the King, sat down at the same board. The crowd 
of persons standing in the dining-room was so great 
that the servants could hardly wait on the table. At 
the beginning of the repast the King said to the 
marshals : " Gentlemen, I am sending you some ver- 
mouth ; I wish to drink with you to the health of the 
French army." According to the Moniteur^ a senti- 
ment of respect prevented the marshals from propos- 
ing the King's health in return, as their enthusiasm 
prompted. 

After dinner, the sovereign returned to the draw- 
ing-room. Every one wished to remain standing, but 
Louis XVIII. obliged the marshals and generals to 
seat themselves at his right hand. The article in 
the Debats, which we have already quoted, says : 
" These brave captains appeared singularly moved by 
this kindness on the part of the sovereign. They 
remembered that the foreigner" — so they called 
Napoleon at this time — " without regard to their 
age, their labors, and their wounds, had forced them 



16 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

to stand for hours in his presence, as if he measured 
the respect of his servants by the pains he made them 
endure." The King showed polite attentions to each 
of the great dignitaries of the army. As he noticed 
that Marshal Lefebvre walked with difficulty, being 
tormented with gout like himself, he said : " Well, 
marshal, are you one of ours ? " 

Then, turning to Marshal Mortier, he said: "Mar- 
shal, when we were not friends, you had an esteem 
for the Queen, my wife, which she did not conceal 
from me, and I recall it to-day." . . . Then, ad- 
dressing Marshal Marmont : " You were wounded in 
Spain and came near losing an arm." — " Yes, Sire," 
replied the marshal, " but I have found it again for 
Your Majesty's service." 

All these lieutenants of Napoleon were enchanted. 
They seemed no longer to think of anything but the 
King. On all sides one could hear : " He shall see 
how we will serve him ! We are his for life." Umi- 
gres and former commanders in the imperial army 
clasped each other by the hand like brothers. No 
more factions, said they, no more parties ! All for 
Louis XVIII. ! 

The marshals showed themselves profoundly moved 
by the attentions of the King, and even the recep- 
tion given them by his courtiers, the great person- 
ages of the old regime, touched them more than we 
could easily believe. In his Histoire de la Restaura- 
tion, that impartial and masterly work which has done 
him so much honor, Baron Louis de Viel-Castel thus 



COMPIEGNE 17 



estimates the attitude of the Emperor's chief com- 
panions-in-arms : " Nowadays, when the names of 
these warriors, aggrandized by time, shine through 
the magic memories of the Empire with that bril- 
liancy which in reality belongs only to some among 
them, it is hard for us to conceive that they should 
have been so sensitive to the condescension of cour- 
tiers whose only claim to distinction was derived 
from their ancestors ; but at that time the lieutenants 
of Napoleon did not yet appeal to the imagination ; 
they did not consider themselves in so important an 
aspect. They found difQculty in believing that their 
fortunes could survive those of the great Emperor 
who had made them what they were, and they needed 
to be reassured. In the days of their youth, when 
they were still private soldiers, and their most ambi- 
tious hopes did not aspire to aught beyond the epau- 
lettes of a sub-lieutenant, they remembered having 
seen these elegant and polished courtiers, who now 
treated them as equals, already in the uniforms of 
colonels and general officers. The prestige of the 
past was not yet so completely effaced that such a 
change in situations could fail to make a marked 
impression on them, and these men who had uncon- 
cernedly commanded armies, gained battles, and con- 
quered and governed provinces, were surprised and 
intoxicated by the advances made by these great 
lords. Their pride was not of a sufficiently lofty 
nature to preserve them from the trivialities of 
vanity." 



18 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

The court was reconstituted at Compi^gne. The 
Count of Artois and his son, the Duke of Berry, who 
had left Louis XVIII. several weeks before, came 
there to offer him their homage. On the 13th of 
April, the King went to Mass in the palace chapel, 
passing through the hall of the Guards. He was 
followed by the Duchess of Angouleme, dressed very 
simply in a white silk robe, her head covered with a 
wreath of flowers and a lace veil. When the King 
left the chapel, the market-women presented him with 
a bouquet and a wreath of lilies and orange flowers. 
Afterwards, the Duchess of Angouleme, accompanied 
by the Count of Artois and the Duke of Berry, went 
out to walk in the park without other attendants. 
Possibly she would have preferred ignorant bour- 
geois and poor peasants to great dignitaries of the 
Empire, whose conversion to the royalist faith seemed 
to her a trifle sudden, and more especially a trifle 
selfish. 

Among the personages who repaired to Compiegne 
to pay their court to the King, was Bernadotte, that 
former marshal of the Empire who had become Prince- 
Royal of Sweden, and, for an instant, had aspired to 
the crown of France. As the Count of Artois was 
conversing with him concerning the difliculties of 
home politics, he said: " Monseigneur, to govern the 
French, you need an iron hand in a velvet glove." 

The arrival of Prince Talleyrand created some 
sensation. " People were curious," says Baron de 
Vitrolles in his Memoirs, " to see how he would pre- 



compiMne 19 



sent himself and how he would be received. They ex- 
pected to see him complaisant, adroit, flattering, and 
caressing ; but he chose quite another rOle. He was 
cold and serious, and made advances to nobody, act- 
ing like a man who had nothing to accuse himself of 
and who stood in no need of support. . . . This rdle 
of independence was carried so far that instead of 
going to meet his uncle. Cardinal de P^rigord, grand- 
almoner of France, returning in the suite and favor 
of the King, M. de Talleyrand waited for the august 
old man, who, in his haste to absolve him, took the 
first steps toward this nephew, so insolent in his 
cleverness." 

The pious Duchess of Angouleme could not have 
found the presence at Compiegne of the former vice- 
grand-elector of the Empire very agreeable. This 
unfrocked priest, this ex-bishop of Autun, who at 
the time of the fete of the Federation, on the 14th of 
July, 1790, had said a Mass on the Champ-de-Mars 
which boded ill to royalty ; this great revolutionist 
lord, this apologist of the 18th Fructidor, could but 
awaken painful thoughts in the daughter of Louis 
XVI. And under what aspect could he be regarded 
by the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Bourbon, 
the grandfather and the father of the unhappy Duke 
of Enghien ; he who was the First Consul's Minister 
of Foreign Affairs when the young prince was mur- 
dered ; he who had given a ball three days after the 
outrage at Vincennes ? 

M. de Talleyrand was received with extreme polite- 



20 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

ness by Louis XVIII., but without much cordiality. 
He was obliged to wait two or three hours before be- 
ing admitted to the King's presence ; and even then 
was forced to seek the intervention of M. de Blacas. 
The sovereign reminded him, not without a spice of 
malice, of the divergence of views which had arisen 
between them since the Revolution began, and then 
added, after saying that his own foresight had been 
justified by events : " If you had proved in the right, 
you would say to me : ' Let us sit down and have a 
talk.' As it is I who have triumphed, I say to you: 
'Sit down, and let us talk.' " 

On the 1st of May, the Emperor Alexander, that au- 
tocrat who had made himself the champion of liberal- 
ism at Paris, came to Compiegne to recommend the 
Constitution elaborated by the Senate. " Contrary to 
all that has been invented by the historians of that 
epoch," says Baron de Vitrolles, " the interview be- 
tween the two sovereigns was nothing but graces and 
compliments. Now, in that line, Louis XVIII. cer- 
tainly had the advantage. The Emperor of Russia 
had too high a sense of the proprieties to seem to 
wish to give lessons to the old King, while the latter's 
mind was too pliant and his character too easy to per- 
mit him to put himself in opposition to the Czar. I 
don't know whether the Emperor Alexander placed 
much confidence in this easy way of looking at things, 
a way which entailed no positive consequences ; but 
for the moment it was all that the most skilful poli- 
tician could have advised." 



COMPIEGNE 21 



Thoroughly satisfied with his stay in Compiegne, 
Louis XVIII. left there on the 2d of May, and halted 
for one day at Saint-Ouen, his last resting-place before 
entering Paris. 



Ill 



SAINT-OUEN 



LOUIS XVIII., accompanied by the Duchess of 
Angouleme, arrived on the morning of May 2d, 
at Saint-Ouen, a village on the Seine, between Saint- 
Denis and Paris. He lodged there in the little chateau 
which he was to present, some years later, to his 
favorite, the Countess of Cayla. The nearer he ap- 
proached his capital, the more did the multitude of 
his courtiers increase. He alone made no haste while 
all the world was in commotion around him. He 
wanted to appear as tranquil as Napoleon had been 
unquiet. It was not until half-past seven in the 
evening that he admitted the ministers to his pres- 
ence in a dimly lighted hall. "It seemed," says 
Count Beugnot, " as if they wanted to accustom us 
very gradually to the spectacle of a king lying in his 
armchair, — us, who were coming away from him who 
passed over Europe with the stride of a giant. But 
already, even from his armchair, the King made him- 
self felt by each of us ; a calm dignity, a caressing 
glance, a flattering voice, questions put most apropos, 
revealed to us a sort of power whose importance we 
had never yet felt." 

22 



SAINT-OUEN 23 



Baron de Vitrolles has thus described this audi- 
ence : " We found the King sitting in the middle 
of the salon ; his attitude and person conveyed the 
impression of his supreme rank; his head still pre- 
served a youthful appearance, and his fat cheeks 
diminished somewhat the prominence of his aquiline 
nose ; his large forehead sloped back a little too 
much ; he had a quick and penetrating glance which 
seemed to light up his face ; his hair was dressed 
in the fashion of his youth — cut short and combed 
up over his forehead into a sort of brush, and pow- 
dered and tied behind in a cue with a ribbon. He 
wore a perfectly simple blue coat, with gold buttons 
engraved with lilies, and no distinctions save epau- 
lettes embroidered with a crown ; he wore the blue 
ribbon on his waistcoat, and at his buttonhole the 
cross of Saint Lazarus, which was called the Order 
of Monsieur, because he himself had revived the 
institution when he bore the title of Monsieur. . . . 
One would have had to see the King in order to 
get any idea of the dignity which he was able to 
impart to such an ungainly body and so awkward a 
gait. Madame (the Duchess of Angouleme) stood 
up, hardly distinguishable, if one may say so, from 
the persons in waiting on the King." 

The Senate, which had essayed at first to take a 
high tone with the sovereign and dictate conditions to 
him, had become pliant very promptly. On the even- 
ing of the 2d of May, they came to Saint-Ouen, headed 
by M. de Talleyrand, who mentioned the charter in 



24 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

his address. Deputations from the constituent bodies 
came next, and spoke neither of the Constitution nor 
of liberty. It was a real storm of adulations, a 
rivalry of dithyrambs. The first president of the 
Court of Cassation celebrated " the sublime and rapid 
movement" which, by re-establishing the King on 
his throne, had "effaced twenty-live years of error 
and ruin, and terminated the evils of a too dis- 
astrous revolution." 

Meanwhile, only a few hours remained in which 
to elaborate the Royal Declaration which must be 
published before Louis XVIII. entered Paris, and 
which was awaited by the public, not merely as the 
programme of the new reign, but as a guarantee of 
liberty. The King contented himself with sketch- 
ing the chief outlines of this Declaration, which 
was destined to become celebrated under the name 
of the Declaration of Saint-Ouen, but he did not take 
the trouble to write it out. He left that care to 
three of his advisers, MM. de Blacas, de Vitrolles, 
and de La Maisonfort, and went quietly to sleep 
until they should have accomplished it. When the 
three editors had succeeded in coming to an agree- 
ment, M. de Blacas, in spite of the entreaties of M. 
de Vitrolles, refused to waken the King, knowing 
so well the value he set on his repose. In the same 
way, later on, they hesitated to arouse him on the 
fatal night when his nephew, the Duke of Berry, was 
assassinated. The liberal Declaration of Saint-Ouen, 
that prelude to the charter, was taken to Paris at 



SAINT-OUEN 25 



two in the morning, without even being submitted 
to Louis XVIII.; it appeared in the Moniteur at 
seven o'clock, and was shortly afterwards placarded 
on the walls of the capital, and produced a good 
impression. 

The preparations for the formal entry had been 
very skilfully arranged. Everything had been so 
managed that the ceremony should present that 
dramatic aspect which is so agreeable to Parisians. 
The season was favorable, and the weather superb. 
Royalty was about to renew itself together with 
the spring. Count Beugnot, who at the time of the 
entry of the Count of Artois, had invented the 
famous phrase attributed to the Prince : " There is 
simply one more Frenchman," had just found an 
excellent inscription for the base of the plaster 
statue of Henri IV., placed provisionally on the 
Pont Neuf while awaiting the bronze which was 
to succeed it. He had chosen these four Latin 
words : " Ludovico reduce^ Henricus redivivus, Louis 
having returned, Henry comes to life again." In 
his Memoirs he says : " I had conceived and exe- 
cuted tolerably well the scheme of replacing the 
statue of Henri IV., a plaster one at least, on the 
platform of the Pont Neuf. There was nothing left 
in Paris from which a horse could be cast, and I 
was obliged to send in haste for the horses of that 
wretched chariot which we had carried off from 
Berlin in 1806, and which returned there in 1815, 
in both cases by the right, not to be gainsaid, of the 



26 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

strongest. At last the horse and the statue reap- 
peared as if by enchantment." 

M. Beugnot next considered the inscription: "I 
puzzled my brains all the morning," he adds ; " I 
made twenty different versions on the paper ; but no 
sooner had I re-read what I had written than I can- 
celled it as too long, or too short, or as unintelligible 
or stupid. Finally, by dint of essaying French ver- 
sions, I was delivered of the Latin word resurrexit. 
It was good, but it was trite. I remembered that it 
had been placed on the pedestal of Henri IV.'s statue 
when a prince, a hundred times worthier than he, 
Louis XVL, had come to the throne, and that it 
remained there until a joker took a notion to write 
underneath it : — 

" D'' Henri ressuscite fapprouve le bon mot, 
Mais, pour me le prouver, ilfaut la poule au pot.^ 

"I could think no more about my resurrexit and, 
moreover, the same quiz, had he still been alive, 
would have returned to demand his chicken, and the 
Cossacks had arranged all that." 

In his perplexity, Count Beugnot bethought him- 
self of consulting the class of inscriptions and 
belles-lettres at the Institute. They sent him four, 
which were not devoid of merit, but which failed to 
satisfy him completely. " At last," he adds, " I gave 
a final glance at the sheet, covered with my attempts 

1 1 approve the witticism about Henry's resuscitation, but, to 
make me believe it, a chicken in my dinner-pot would be necessary. 



SAINT-OUEN 27 



and erasures, and made out this version : ' The return 
of one causes the other to revive.' ^ It lacked dignity 
in its wording, and the construction was too common- 
place ; and yet, as the idea I wanted was there, I 
attempted to Latinize it in these words: Ludovico 
reduce, Henricus redivivus. I was struck at once with 
the felicity of my version, and awarded myself the 
prize without further ceremony." 

Every detail of the formal entry was arranged 
beforehand. Baron de VitroUes remarks that the 
white apple-wood cane of the grand-master of cere- 
monies presided over everything ; for the Marquis of 
Dreux-Breze had resumed his functions by the same 
right that the King had to his throne. Feeling all 
his official importance, he came to interview the 
baron concerning the ancient and solemn custom 
observed at the entry of kings, of having heralds-at- 
arms scatter small gold and silver coins, stamped 
with the sovereign's G'^gj, among the people. "I 
made haste," adds M. de Vitrolles, " to have forty or 
fifty thousand of these pieces struck off at the 
mint, some of them in gold, but the majority in silver, 
and they were scattered in front of His Majesty's 
carriage. The people showed alacrity in picking 
them up, but not the sort of eagerness that leads to 
disorder. When I went to Saint-Ouen to take my 
place in the procession, I took with me some hand- 
fuls of these gold pieces and gave them to the King 

1 "Ze retour de Vunfait revivre V autre." 



28 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

and the Princes. The Duchess of Angouleme ap- 
proached and took out of my hand some of these 
medals which I could have desired to present in a 
more respectful manner ; and she was so gracious as 
to seize this occasion to say some words expressive of 
that favor and kindness of which I have experienced 
such affecting evidence." 

It was not the men of Coblentz who displayed the 
greatest eagerness to decorate their houses with white 
flags. The persons who showed most zeal were those 
who had been accustomed to live at the expense of 
the budget. They all wished a share of the booty, 
under the Bourbons, as they had done under the 
Empire. Let us hear M. de Chateaubriand: "A 
filthy rope," says he, " was put around the neck of 
the statue on the column in the Place Vend6me ; 
there were very few royalists to hoot at glory and to 
haul at the rope ; it was the authorities, all Bona- 
partists, who cast down the image of their master 
with the aid of a gallows-bitt. The mighty image 
had to bow its head; it fell at the feet of those 
sovereigns of Europe who so often had prostrated 
themselves before it." And the author of Memoires 
cC Outre-Tomhe exclaims : " Imperialists and liberals, 
it is by your hands that power fell ; it is you who 
bent the knee to the progeny of Henri IV. It was 
wholly natural that royalists should rejoice at recov- 
ering their princes and ending the reign of him whom 
they deemed a usurper ; but you, who owe your all 
to that usurper, you would outdo the sentiments of 



SAINT-OUEN 29 



the royalists. . . . Who was it that drew up those 
proclamations, those accusatory and outrageous ad- 
dresses with which France was flooded ? Was it the 
royalists? No; it was the ministers, the generals, 
the authorities chosen and maintained by Bonaparte. 
Where was the Restoration plotted? At the houses 
of royalists ? No ; at the house of M. de Talleyrand. 
With whom? With M. de Pradt, almoner of the 
Dieu Mars and mitred mountebank. . . . Where 
were fetes given to the infdmes princes Strangers? 
At the chateaux of royalists ? No ; at Malmaison, at 
the home of the Empress Josephine." 

Is it not strange to find the author of the brochure, 
Buonaparte et les Bourbons^ writing these ironical 
phrases : " Madame de Talleyrand, whom Bonaparte 
had pasted on her husband like a placard, rushed 
through the streets in an open carriage, singing 
hymns about the pious family of the Bourbons. Some 
sheets that fluttered from the windows of the do- 
mestics of the imperial court caused the innocent 
Cossacks to think that there were as many lilies 
in the hearts of the Bonapartists as there were white 
rags at their casements. It is wonderful how conta- 
gion spreads in France, and so when people heard 
their neighbors bawl, ' Off goes my head,' they bawled 
it likewise. The imperialists even entered the 
houses of us Bourbonists, and forced us to hang out, 
in the fashion of spotless flags, whatever white arti- 
cles were locked up in our linen rooms. This hap- 
pened at my house, but Madame de Chateaubriand 



30 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



would not hear of such a thing, and valiantly 
defended her muslin." 

And now let us recount the triumphal entry of 
Louis XVIII. into his capital. 



IV 

THE ENTRY INTO PARIS 

SINCE the morning of the 3d of May the whole 
population of Paris has been astir. Everywhere 
the drum is summoning the National Guard to arms. 
Around white standards ornamented with blue tassels 
of the fleur-de-lis gather the legions which shall soon 
form in lines between which the King will pass. Red 
has been excluded, as it is the color of blood. In his 
writing entitled Be V Esprit de Conquete et cV Usurpa- 
tion^ Benjamin Constant thus cursed the tricolor : 
" Do not," he said, " indecently forsake the oriflamme 
of your fathers for a banner bloody with crimes and 
stripped of every success." The plain of Saint-Ouen, 
the hills of Montmartre, the avenues of Paris, the 
banks of the Seine, are covered with an innumerable 
multitude. No clouds are in the sky. The sun is 
resplendent. Windows and roofs are lined with 
spectators. White flags are on all the houses. 

The royal procession has just left Saint-Ouen. 
Salvos of artillery resound on the air. A detach- 
ment of mounted national guards and another of cav- 
alry of the line head the procession. Behind them 
come in the same carriage Cardinal Talleyrand-P^ri- 

31 



32 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

gord, Grand Almoner of France ; the Duke of Duras, 
First Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber; the 
Count of Blacas, Grand Master of the Wardrobe, and 
the Marquis of Dreux-Breze, Grand Master of Cere- 
monies. Marshal Berthier, Prince of Wagram and 
Neufchatel, rides on horseback before the King's car- 
riage, accompanied by a number of general officers. 
The royal coach, drawn by eight horses taken from 
the Emperor's stables and led by grooms who wear 
his green livery, advances with majestic slowness. 
The future Charles X., Monsieur, the Count of 
Artois, and his son, the Duke of Berry, with the 
Marshals of France and the Dukes of Gramont and 
of Havre, both captains of the guard, are on horse- 
back, one on the right side of the coach, and the other 
on the left. On the back seat of the coach may be 
seen Louis XVIII. with the Duchess of Angouleme. 
On the front seat are the Prince of Condd and his 
son, the Duke of Bourbon, father of the unfortunate 
Duke of Enghien. Behind the royal coach is Mar- 
shal Moncey, Duke of Conegliano, with a party of 
general officers of the army and a detachment of the 
old Imperial Guard. 

Such is the procession which reaches the Barrier 
Saint-Denis. M. de Chabrol, Prefect of the Seine, 
surrounded by some dozen mayors, presents to the 
King the keys of the city on a golden plate. " Sire," 
he says, "the municipal body of your good city of 
Paris lays at the feet of Your Majesty the keys of the 
capital of the kingdom of Saint Louis. . . . The image 



THE ENTRY INTO PARIS 33 

of Henri IV., of the sight of which we have so long 
been deprived, appears once more on this solemn day. 
It recalls to us days of affliction, to which shall soon 
succeed days of public rejoicing. This day his reign 
begins once more. All France, France blessed by 
his trust and his love, turns, too, its glance upon 
those beloved princes, upon an august princess whose 
name awakens so many feelings and emotions, and it 
exclaims with transports of joy and tenderness : ' Long 
live the King! Long live the Bourbons!'" — "At 
length," replies the monarch, " I am in my good city 
of Paris ! I am greatly moved by the evidence of 
love she gives me at this moment. Nothing could 
be more grateful to my heart than to see erected 
the statue of him who, among all my ancestors, is 
most dear to me. I touch the keys, and I restore 
them to you; they can be in no better hands, nor 
can they be confided to magistrates more worthy to 
bear them." 

The procession continues on its way. A magnifi- 
cent coronal falls into the royal coach as it passes 
under the triumphal arch at the Porte Saint-Denis. 
The shouting is very enthusiastic. The cry of "Long 
live the Guard ! " mingles from time to time v/ith the 
shout of " Long live the King ! " which is heard con- 
tinually. When the Market of the Innocents is 
reached, two orchestras are found there which play 
the tune, "Vive Henri IV." The King stops his car- 
riage, that he may receive the congratulations of the 
market-women. At the same instant a most lovely 



34 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

little child presents a basket of flowers to the Duchess 
of Angouleme, and releases two young turtle-doves 
which fly about the Princess. It is half -past two 
o'clock when the procession draws up before the 
church of Notre-Dame. Louis XVIII. is received 
by the metropolitan chapter under an awning spread 
before the great gate. The Abbe de La Myre speaks. 
"Sire," says he, "one of the illustrious ancestors of 
Your Majesty here poured out at the foot of the altar 
of our august Patron Saint his prayers and his vows 
with pious trust, and to him was granted the birth of 
a son, Louis XIV. For many long years we, too, in 
silence and in sorrow, have laid on the same altar our 
prayers and our tears, and to-day Heaven gives us 
back our King, our father, Louis XVIII. The God 
of Saint Louis has raised your throne ; you will 
strengthen His altars. 'God and the King' is our 
device ; it has always been the motto of the clergy 
of France, whose mouth-piece the Church of Paris 
now felicitates itself on being." 

The sovereign responds : " Upon entering my 
good city of Paris my first concern is to come to 
thank God and His Holy Mother, the all-powerful 
Protectress of France, for the marvels that have 
ended my misfortunes. I, the son of Saint Louis, 
will imitate his virtues." 

Then the monarch is borne into the sanctuary on a 
throne carried by four canons. At his right hand 
is Monsieur, at the left the Duchess of Angouleme. 
The Duke of Berry, tlie Prince of Cond^, and the 



THE ENTRY INTO PARIS 35 

Duke of Bourbon follow the throne. Monseigneur 
de Talleyrand-P^rigord, Archbishop of Rheims, and 
Grand Almoner of France, hands the prayer-book to 
the Kmg. Domine salvumfac regem nostrum Ludovi- 
cum is sung. Then the Te Deum is intoned. 

At this solemn moment there is but one thing that 
disturbs the joy of the royalists ; it is the presence of 
regicides in the cathedral. Listen to the indignation 
of the Baron of Yitrolles : " Places," he says, " had 
been reserved at the right and left of the nave for all 
the constituted bodies, the municipal council, mem- 
bers of the courts of justice and the treasury courts, 
the Corps Ldgislatif and the Senate, — that Senate 
which still counted among its members several regi- 
cides of the Convention. I was disturbed by the 
idea that perhaps some of these great criminals, tak- 
ing advantage of their high positions, would slip in 
among those who were engaged more immediately in 
the ceremonies, and I had spoken to M. Pasquier, 
the Prefect of Police, about the matter, begging him 
to use all the means in our power to prevent the 
scandalous anomaly of murderers coming, as it were, 
to welcome the brothers and the daughter of their 
victim. But it became evident that his intervention 
was useless ; these persons set at naught the instruc- 
tions of the official, and insolently came to affront 
God, the King, the daughter of Louis XVL, and, so 
to say, all France, which recoiled from them with 
horror. 

" The King was in the choir. Monsieur the King's 



36 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

brother and Monseigneur the Duke of Berry, at his 
right hand, and Madame at his left, all kneeling at 
prie-dieus, on cushions that had been arranged for 
them. The members of the Council and the minis- 
ters stood along the stalls on both sides of the choir. 
I found myself one of those who were nearest to 
Madame ; she absorbed all my thoughts, and I pon- 
dered deeply on all that must be passing through 
her mind. I saw that she was disturbed, pale, trem- 
bling, and weak to the point of swooning. Once I 
even took a step forward to support her; my imagi- 
nation represented to me all that the daughter of 
Louis XVI. must be experiencing as vividly as hers 
could have felt it." 

The orphan of* the Temple was not the only one 
who suffered at that moment. The King and his 
retinue had but now left Notre-Dame to return to the 
Tuileries. A regiment of the Old Guard stood in 
line from the church to the Pont Neuf, Hear what 
M. de Chateaubriand, an eye-witness of the scene, 
has to say of it : "I do not believe," says he, " that 
human beings ever before formed so menacing and 
terrible a spectacle. Those grenadiers covered with 
wounds, the conquerors of Europe, past whose heads 
so many thousands of bullets had whistled, who had 
known fire and powder, — those same men, bereft of 
their captain, were obliged to salute an old king, 
invalided by time, not by war, and were watched by 
an army of Russians, Austrians, and Prussians in the 
capital of which Napoleon had been robbed. Some, 



THE ENTRY INTO PABIS 37 

by knitting their brows, brought their huge hairy 
hats down over their eyes so that they might not 
look; others curled their lips in angry scorn, and 
others tigerishly showed their teeth under their mus- 
taches. When they presented arms it was with a 
furious movement, and the rattle of the weapons 
made one tremble. Never, surely, had men been put 
to such a trial or suffered such torture." 

And to the orphan of the Temple what anguish 
even at the moment of her triumph ! While the 
grenadiers of the old Imperial Guard were trembling 
with rage, she was pale with grief. During the 
progress from Notre-Dame, she had to pass the Palace 
of Justice from which her mother had been led to 
the scaffold, in a vile cart, and amid the curses of 
the furies of the guillotine. There loomed up the 
gloomy turrets of the Conciergerie, the last prison of 
the Queen-Martyr. The Duchess of Angouleme was 
suddenly agitated. Tears rose to her eyes. The 
procession has now stopped on the Pont Neuf before 
the statue of Henri IV. Madame Blanchard, the 
aeronaut, makes an ascent in a balloon, holding a 
white flag in each hand. The singers of the Con- 
servatory strike up the national air, " Vive Henri 
IV.," and soldiers and people repeat it in chorus. 
Two small temples have been erected on either side 
of the statue, one dedicated to the Harmony of the 
French, and the other to the Peace of Nations. Great 
is the enthusiasm of the people. But nothing attracts 
the attention of the Princess, oppressed as she is 



38 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



with gloomy thoughts and mournful memories. The 
nearer she draws to the Tuileries, the more agitated 
she becomes, for she is returning to that majestic and 
fatal palace which she left on August 10, 1792, and 
which, since then, she has never seen. It is not the 
present acclaims that she hears, but the far-off echoes 
of mourning and massacre. She seems to see the 
red caps of pikemen and the corpses of the mur- 
dered Swiss. The Tuileries is to her not the abode 
of pride and joy, but a place accursed. She treads 
the threshold with feelings of repugnance and horror 
alone. On this splendid day when the sun sinks in 
refulgence below the horizon, and its brightness, like 
the flame of an apotheosis, illuminates the triumphal 
return of the brother of Louis XVI., she, the child 
of martyrs, is sad at heart. Nevertheless she alights 
from the carriage. But, despite all the firmness of 
her nature, she is unable to endure such emotion, and 
swoons when two hundred women, robed in white, 
and decked with lilies, kneel before her and say: 
" Daughter of Louis XVI., grant us your blessing ! " 
Borne half-dead to her apartments, she recovers only 
to weep and pray. 

Louis XVIII. remains calm. He, who had seen 
neither the 20th of June nor the 10th of August, 
is assailed by no such emotions. He is escorted to 
the room on the first floor, between the Throne Salon 
and the Gallery of Diana, which but a few days 
before was known as the Emperor's Salon. 

The royalists congratulated themselves on the 



THE ENTRY INTO PARIS 39 

outcome of the day. "Never," says the Baron of 
VitroUes, "had Paris been so greatly moved. I 
had seen Bonaparte's entrance into the Tuileries : 
it was cold, silent, and solitary. Upon his return 
from his greatest victories I had seen him received 
with utter indifference, and at most but slightly 
applauded when he attended the theatre. When 
he rode on horseback along the boulevards, only a 
few children could be seen trotting along beside him 
and crying, ' Long live the Emperor ! ' There were 
not enough of them to make one think that they 
were not all doing their best under the pay of the 
police. We rejoiced without stint in this triumph of 
the ancient race of our kings." 

But there were shadows in the picture drawn in 
such brilliant colors by M. de Vitrolles. " Already," 
says Count Beugnot, "we could see what a sorry 
leave of all our victories we had been forced to take. 
The comrades of Napoleon deeply lamented him, 
and derided a king lolling in his easy-chair." The 
appearance of the King was, indeed, exceedingly 
singular to a nation of soldiers which for fifteen 
years had had a man of devouring activity for its 
chief. One would hardly believe to what an extent 
this comparison injured Louis XVIIL Bourrienne, 
another witness of the royal entry, says : " On the 
day of the entry of the King, there was no such 
enthusiasm as on that when Monsieur, the King's 
brother, came to Paris. When I walked about, I 
noticed a curious kind of wonder everywhere." 



40 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

The enthusiasm was indeed far from universal. 
Under a foreign invasion there could be no real 
festivities. A dismembered nation, which but now 
has lost the fruit of so many glorious efforts, has 
no right to rejoice. The good sense of the public 
had observed, and not without severe reflections 
upon them, the over-sudden recantations of Napo- 
leon's marshals. "I was in the crowd, watching 
the procession," says Savary, Duke of Rovigo, in 
his Memoirs. " If the men who had shared the mis- 
fortunes of his exile had been seen on horseback 
beside the King's carriage, it would have seemed 
perfectly natural ; but it impressed one as a some- 
what indecent thing that men should figure in the 
suite of Louis XVIII. who had been most prominent 
in the Emperor's triumphal .processions. The com- 
mon people, who have more sense of propriety than 
would be supposed, treated Berthier without cere- 
mony. I frequently heard the crowd cry out at him: 
' To the island of Elba ! To the island of Elba ! ' " 

By a singular coincidence, on that very 3d of 
May, 1814, at nightfall, when all Paris was ablaze 
to celebrate the King's return, the English frigate 
Undaunted^ bearing the Emperor, who had now been 
transformed into the sovereign of the island of Elba, 
approached Porto-Ferrajo and hove to, a quarter of a 
league from the town. France for Louis XVIII. ; 
for Napoleon, the island of Elba I The King entered 
his capital on the 3d of May, and Napoleon was to 
enter his on the day following. 



THE ALLIES 

LOUIS XVIII. had had the tact to ask, and the 
good fortune to have his request granted, that 
no foreign troops should be present at the celebra- 
tion of his return to his capital. The patriotism of 
the Parisians had enabled them for a moment to for- 
get the affliction of the nation. On the next day, 
which was the 4th of May, their conquerors held 
a grand review. Following is the comment made 
by the Moniteu?' of May 5th, in its report : " Yester- 
day there was a grand parade of all the allied troops. 
They formed in line on the right bank of the Seine. 
At three o'clock they defiled, infantry, cavalry, and 
artillery, under the King's windows ; they were 
commanded by S. A. I., the Grand Duke Constan- 
tine. Their Majesties, the Emperor of Russia, the 
Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia, and 
their Royal Highnesses, Monsieur and Monseigneur 
the Duke of Berry, were close to the King. The 
Duchess of Angouleme was beside them. The pub- 
lic, which flocked under the windows of the Pavilion 
of Flora, constantly cried : " Long live the King ! 
Long live the Allied Sovereigns ! " Louis XVIII. 

41 



42 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



thought that he had saved the national dignity by 
taking precedence of the foreign monarchs. " His 
Bourbon pride was so exaggerated and absurd," 
said Marshal Marmont, " that he, who was so much 
indebted to the sovereigns of Europe, contrived 
on two occasions to take precedence of them, 
and at his own house. He gave a dinner to the 
Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia, and 
sat down first at the table. On another occasion, 
having gone to a balcony to see the troops pass, 
he ordered an easy-chair for himself and simple 
chairs for them. The sovereigns remained stand- 
ing, and it was commonly thought that the King 
sat in the easy-chair because of his infirmities." 

The pride that amused Marmont excited a cer- 
tain degree of admiration in Chateaubriand, who 
says : " When Louis XVIII. accorded to the tri- 
umphant monarchs the honor of dining with him, 
he unceremoniously preceded princes whose soldiers 
were encamped in the court of the Louvre ; he 
treated them like vassals who had done only their 
duty in bringing armed men to their lord suzerain. 
All royal families are but of yesterday when com- 
pared with the family of Hugh Capet, and nearly 
all of them are the offspring of that family. The 
more impolitic was that same superb haughtiness 
of the descendant of Saint Louis (it was disas- 
trous to his successors), the more it pleased the 
national pride. The French were delighted to see 
sovereigns who, when vanquished, had borne the 



THE ALLIES 43 



chains of one man, bear, when conquerors, the yoke 
of one race." 

The allied monarchs were modest in their triumph. 
In Paris they lived the life of ordinary people, with 
no pretence of superior power or any show of roy- 
alty. " They declined," as we are told by the Baron 
of Vitrolles, " to occupy any of the royal mansions, 
— the Tuileries, the Luxembourg, or even the Pa- 
lais Royal, — a simplicity of good taste which is in 
strong contrast with the lordly vanity of Bonaparte, 
who, at Vienna, Berlin, and Moscow, strutted in the 
dwellings of kings as if to signalize his victories. 
Ordinarily they went through the streets without 
wearing any distinguishing costume ; and sometimes 
on foot without any escort, as if they wished to keep 
all tokens of defeat from the eyes of the Parisians ; 
and for this they received their reward. The good 
wishes of the public surrounded them everywhere — 
in the streets, when they were recognized, with 
shouts and vivas ; at spectacles, with rounds of ap- 
plause and, when their presence was foreseen, with 
couplets in their lienor, the frequent exaggerations 
of which surprised even ourselves." The foreign 
sovereigns became popular. They amused them- 
selves by mingling in the crowds and going incog- 
nito to the shows at small theatres. The King of 
Prussia found pleasure in going alone to the " Mon- 
tagues Russes," and rolling up and down their 
steep inclines in a double-seated car, side by side 
with a woman he did not know. " Who were they 



44 THE BUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

who spent their time with the autocrat Alexander ? " 
says Chateaubriand. " Scholars of the Institute, 
savants, men of letters, philosophers, philanthropists, 
and the like. They were delighted and went away 
loaded down with eulogies and snuff-boxes." 

It must be said that the French officers did not 
share this infatuation for the foreigners. They kept 
away from the theatres as long as the allied troops 
occupied the capital. They walked about deject- 
edly, like civilians, without uniforms or decorations. 
There were royalists, too, who shared in their dejec- 
tion. Madame de Stael says that when she landed 
at Calais after ten years of exile, she counted on the 
great pleasure she was to have in seeing once more 
the beautiful land of France which she had so much 
regretted. Her sensations were utterly different 
from what she had expected. The first men she saw 
on the shore were dressed in Prussian uniforms ; 
they were masters of the city, and had gained the 
right to it through conquest. As she neared Paris, 
Russians, Cossacks, and Bashkirs met her sight on 
every hand : they encamped ar(5Und the church of 
Saint-Denis in which reposed the ashes of the French 
kings. When she entered the capital in which she 
had passed her happiest and most brilliant days, she 
felt as in a painful dream. " Was I in Germany or 
in Russia?" she says. "Had they imitated the 
streets and public squares of France in order to re- 
call it to memory when it existed no longer ? My 
whole being was troubled ; for, notwithstanding my 



THE ALLIES 45 



intense suffering, I esteemed the strangers for remov- 
ing the yoke from our necks. I admired them be- 
yond measure at that time, but it was an insupport- 
able grief to me to see Paris occupied by them, and 
the Tuileries and Louvre guarded by soldiers brought 
from the confines of Asia, and to whom our lan- 
guage, our history, and our great men were less 
known than the last Tartar Khan." 

Listen once more to Madame de Stael as she gives 
an account of a representation at the Opera during 
the foreign occupation : " Some days after my ar- 
rival," she tells us, " I wished to go to the Opera ; 
many a time during my exile had I recalled that 
daily fete in Paris as being more pleasing and bril- 
liant than all the wonderful pomps of other lands. 
The play was the ballet of 'Psyche,' which had 
been rendered continuously for twenty years, under 
circumstances of great difBculty. The stairs of the 
Opera were lined with Russian guards. On entering 
the house I looked about to find some face known 
to me, and I saw only foreign uniforms. There were 
some few old citizens of Paris in the parterre, who 
had come so as not to break up their old habits ; for 
the rest, all the spectators had changed; the spec- 
tacle alone remained the same ; the decorations, the 
music, the dancing, had lost none of their charm, and 
I was humiliated to see French grace thrown away 
on these sabres and mustaches as if it had been the 
duty of the vanquished to amuse their conquerors." 

The Emperor Alexander was somewhat distant to 



46 TRE DUCHESS OF ANG0UL:^ME 

Louis XVIII. without becoming embroiled with him. 
The Czar could not forget that he had only to say 
the word, and the Restoration would be overthrown, 
and the King of Rome proclaimed. He considered 
Louis XVIII. an ingrate, ill advised, and infatuated 
as to the superiority of his royal line. He was hurt 
at not having received the cordon of the Holy Ghost, 
which was given to the Prince Regent of England, 
and at not having obtained a' seat in the Chamber for 
his prot^g^, the Duke of Vicenza. So he very sel- 
dom appeared at the Tuileries. He preferred the 
society of Prince Eugene de Beauharnais to that of 
Louis XVIIL, and became the intimate friend and 
courtier of the Empress Josephine and Queen Hor- 
tense, for whom, by dint of persistent application, he 
had obtained the title of Duchess of Saint-Leu. 
These two Princesses pleased him far more than the 
austere Duchess of Angouleme. Not long ago the 
Emperor William said that he perfectly well remem- 
bered one evening that he spent, in 1814, with the 
Empress Josephine at Malmaison, in company with 
his father, Frederick William III., and his brother, 
Frederick William IV., the Emperor Alexander, and 
the Russian Grand Dukes Constantine and Nicholas. 
Queen Hortense sang a romanza of her own compo- 
sition, and it seems that as she sang she smiled with 
special favor on the handsome Grand Duke Nicholas, 
the future Czar. 

On the 16th of May, Prince Schwarzenberg, 
the Austrian field marshal, gave a fete at his head- 



THE ALLIES 47 



quarters, the chateau of Saint-Cloud, at which the 
Emperor Alexander, the Grand Dukes of Russia, the 
Prussian King and Princes, the Duke of Berry, and 
a large number of general and superior officers, both 
foreign and French, were present. The Moniteur 
reported this fete, which the Duchess of Angouleme 
had the good taste not to attend. The palace of 
Saint-Cloud was illuminated most splendidly. Mem- 
bers of the Com^die-Fran§aise played " The Legacy " 
and the " Suite d'un Bal Masqu^ " on a stage specially 
put up at the lower end of the great gallery painted 
by Mignard. After the play there was a ball in the 
Salon de Mars. The Czar took part in the dancing. 
The assembly then adjourned to a large hall in 
which a magnificent dinner was served. This hall, 
which communicated with the Orangery, was filled 
with shrubs and flowers, the sight of which, accord- 
ing to the Monitew^ reminded the Emperor of Russia 
of the beautiful conservatories of Saint Petersburg. 
On the 29th of May, the Day of Pentecost, 
the attendance at the palace of the Tuileries was 
very large and brilliant. The princes of the royal 
family and the blood royal met. There for the first 
time the Duchess of Angouleme appeared in the new 
court costume, which consisted of a white silk dress 
with a long train and a lace head-dress w^ith hanging 
lappets. On the same day died the woman who had 
been Empress of the French and Queen of Italy. 
On the next day the Journal des Bebats announced 
at the same time the royal audience at the Tuileries 



48 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

and the death of the former Empress. The royalist 
journal thus expressed itself : " The mother of Prince 
Eugene died at noon in the chateau of Malmaison, 
after an illness which first showed itself as a catarrhal 
fever and then suddenly assumed such a malignant 
character that she succumbed to it at the end of three 
days. She received all the aids of religion with as 
much piety as resignation. . . . Some hours before 
her death she counted with pleasure upon the regret 
of the many families whom she had had the pleasure 
of assisting, and the hope of this regret seemed much 
to alleviate her sufferings." On the day after that 
on which the companion of Napoleon's happy days 
received the last sacraments, France signed the 
treaty by which it relinquished all the conquests of 
the Revolution and the Empire. 

Having nothing further to wish for, the foreigners 
decided to take their departure. On the 1st of 
June the Emperors of Russia and Austria went to 
the Tuileries to take leave of the King and the princes 
of his family. On the following day the Czar was 
represented at the funeral of the Empress Josephine 
and left the capital ; the Austrian Emperor set out 
on the same day; on the 4th of June the King of 
Prussia also departed, and all the allied troops which 
yet remained in Paris and its vicinity followed on the 
next morning. 

The Czar was dissatisfied with the whole affair. 
In conversation with Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, 
to whom he displayed the most intense sympathy, he 



THE ALLIES 49 



said: "I do not know but I shall repent having 
re-seated the Bourbons on the throne ; we have had 
them in Russia, and I know how to conduct myself 
so far as they are concerned." To the great scandal 
of the royalists, he had pretended to delight in the 
society of liberals. Once when he met M. de Lafay- 
ette in the salon of Madame de Stael, he complained 
— he, the autocrat — of the prejudices of the old 
r%ime which were at the bottom of the government 
of the Bourbons and, when the old revolutionist 
seemed to think that misfortune would have some 
corrective effect on them, " They corrected ! " ex- 
claimed the Czar. " They are uncorrected and in- 
corrigible. There is only one of them — the Duke 
of Orleans — who has liberal ideas; as to the rest 
of them, never allow yourself to hope for anything 
from them." '' If that is your opinion. Sire," replied 
M. de Lafayette, " why have you restored them ? " 
" It is not my fault," replied the Emperor. " They 
were pressed upon me from all sides. I wished to 
keep them back in order that the nation might have 
time to impose a constitution on them. They over- 
whelmed me like a flood. You know that I went 
to Compiegne to see the King: I wanted to get him 
to give up his nineteen years of reign and preten- 
sions of that sort. A deputation from the Corps 
L^gislatif was there as soon as I was, to recognize him 
at all times and without conditions. What could I 
do when the King and the deputies were of the same 
mind? The whole thing was a failure, and I went 
away much distressed." 



50 THE DUCHESS OF ANG0UL£:ME 

Before leaving Paris this autocrat, absolute at 
home, liberal abroad, and mystifying everywhere, had 
caused a religious service to be held in the Place de 
la Concorde. Chateaubriand says : " An altar was 
erected on the spot where the scaffold of Louis XVI. 
had been put up. Seven Muscovite priests celebrated, 
and foreign troops were drawn up before the altar. 
The Te Deum was sung to one of the beautiful tunes 
of the ancient Greek Church. Soldiers and sover- 
eigns knelt to receive the blessing. The minds of the 
French reverted to 1793 and 1794, when cattle 
refused to walk on the stones rendered hateful to 
them by the smell of blood. To this feast of expia- 
tion what hand had led these men from all lands, 
these descendants of old barbarous invaders, these 
Tartars, some of whom dwelt in sheepskin tents 
under the great Chinese wall?" 



VI 



THE COURT 



THE court was established at the Tuileries on 
the 3d of May, 1814. It was to remain there 
till the 19th of March, 1815. Louis XVIII. occupied 
the chamber of Napoleon on the first floor, which 
opened on the garden and adjoined the large apart- 
ments overlooking the Carrousel. Monsieur, the 
King's brother, and the Duke of Berry were installed 
in the Pavilion de Marsan. The Duchess of Angou- 
leme lived in the Pavilion of Flora, where she could 
recall mournful memories of Madame Elisabeth and 
the Princess of Lamballe, who had also dwelt there. 
Court etiquette was about the same under royalty 
as under imperialism. But the general appearance 
of the palace underwent some modifications ; there 
were more courtiers, and especially was there much 
more domesticity. Types the most diverse met 
there. An old emigre^ the Count of Puymaigre, 
gives this description of it : " What a singular mix- 
ture I saw in 1814 when I reached Paris in July ! — 
a mixture of courtiers of all epochs ; of military men 
of the times before, during, and after the Revolution ! 
Here was an officer escaped from the disaster at Mos- 

51 



52 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

COW ; there another who had put on again the 
uniform of the army of Cond^ ; yonder a Yend^an 
dressed in green, or a Chouan in iron gray; and then 
one of those young men who, wishing to keep out of 
harm's way, had enlisted as soon as peace came. 
The old r%ime and the new were face to face, and it 
should also be said that, aside from some wise men, — 
and there were very few such, — everybody remained 
fixed in his old prejudices, in his antipathies, and in 
his political theories, and all, nevertheless, besieged 
the Tuileries and the offices of the ministers with 
the same importunity." 

A strange and particolored court filled with hete- 
rogeneous and diverse elements ; a court confused 
and contradictory; a true picture of a France thus 
divided! How many people could say to themselves 
at the Tuileries what the Doge of Genoa said to him- 
self at Versailles : " What most surprises me here is 
to find myself here at all." What a singular gather- 
ing ! Volunteers of 1792 side by side with the sol- 
diers of Cond^ ; defenders of the throne and the 
altar mingling with regicides, and Venddans with 
men who had been the mere tools of Napoleon. 
Etiquette always prevents controversies at the Tui- 
leries, and men who at bottom are agreed in mutual 
hatred, have officially for each other only polite 
phrases. ''The fear which the imperial govern- 
ment inspired," says Madame de Stael, " had entirely 
destroyed the customary freedom of conversation; 
under that government nearly all Frenchmen became 



THE COURT 53 



diplomatists, so that society indulged only in insipid 
talk which never recalled the bold spirit of France. 
Assuredly no one had anything to fear in 1814, under 
Louis XVIII. ; but the habit of reserve had become 
fixed and, besides, the courtiers thought it would not 
be 'good form' to talk politics or to discuss any 
serious subject; they hoped that in this way the 
nation might be made frivolous again, and, conse- 
quently, submissive : but the only result they accom- 
plished was to render conversation insipid, and to 
deprive themselves of all means of getting at any- 
body's opinions." 

And yet there was one theme upon which every 
one was allowed to touch, and that was satire of the 
imperial government. Listen to Madame de Stael 
again : " The most moderate party was made up of 
the royalists who had returned with the King and 
who had never forsaken him during his exile, — the 
Count of Blacas, the Duke of Gramont, the Duke of 
Castries, the Count of Vaudreuil, etc. Their con- 
sciences bore witness that they had acted in the most 
noble and disinterested manner from their point of 
view, and they were quiet and kindly disposed. But 
those who had most difficulty in restraining their 
virtuous indignation against the party of the usurper 
were the nobles or their adherents who, while that 
same usurper was in power, had asked for place, and 
had left him at once on the day of his downfall. 
The enthusiasm for legitimacy which was displayed 
by such persons as the chamberlain of Madame M^re 



54 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

and the tiring-woman of Madame Soeur knew no 
bounds." 

The King did not re-establish the conditions which 
under the old regime had been exacted in order to be 
received at court. He politely received all who were 
presented, no matter what camp they had belonged 
to or what cockade they had worn. Sometimes they 
were old republicans, sometimes they were even 
members of the Convention, and again they were 
deputies of the West, wearing the white emblems 
of their party, or precinct captains from La Vendue 
wearing hats of the style of Rochejacquelein. Cha- 
teaubriand says : '' Uniforms of Napoleon's Guard 
intermingled with those of the body-guard and of the 
Maison-Rouge, cut precisely after the old patterns. 
The aged Diike of Havr^, with his powdered wig and 
his black cane, walked with trembling head as cap- 
tain of the body-guard, near Marshal Victor, limping 
in the manner of Bonaparte ; the Duke of Mouchy, 
who had never witnessed the firing of a gun, went 
to Mass side by side with Marshal Oudinot, riddled 
with wounds ; the chateau of the Tuileries, so pre- 
cise and military under Napoleon, was now, instead 
of smelling of powder, redolent of the odors of food 
cooking on every hand; under messieurs the gentle- 
men of the bedchamber and messieurs the gentlemen 
of the wardrobe everything assumed an air of domes- 
ticity." The author of the Memoires cf Outre-Tombe 
also places before our eyes ladies of the imperial court 
introducing the dowagers of the Faubourg Saint- 



THE COUBT 55 



Germain and showing them the intricacies of the 
chateau ; Conventionists who had by turns become 
counts, barons, and senators under Napoleon and 
peers under Louis XVIII., relapsing, now into the 
republican dialect, which they had almost forgotten, 
and now into the idiom of absolutism, which they 
had learned thoroughly; lieutenant-generals raised 
to game-keepers: aides-de-camp of the last military 
tyrant discussing the inviolable liberties of the peo- 
ple, and regicides with pious warmth upholding the 
dogma of legitimacy. 

The court functionaries had been re-established. 
M. de Talleyrand-P^rigord, Archbishop-Duke of 
Rheims, was Grand Almoner; the Prince of Cond^ 
was Grand Master of France ; the Count of Blacas, 
Grand Master of the Wardrobe ; the Marquis of 
Dreux-Brez6, Grand Master of Ceremonies; the 
Dukes of Richelieu, of Duras, of Aumont, and of 
Fleury, First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber; the 
Marquises of Avar ay and of Boisgelin, Masters of 
the Wardrobe ; the Duke of Mortemart, Commander 
of the Hundred Switzers ; the Marquis of Vernon, 
Chief Equerry; the Count of Coss^-Brissac, First 
Pantler; the Marquis of La Suze, Grand Master of 
the Lodges ; the Count of Escars, Grand Maitre 
d'H6tel; and the Marquis of Mondragon, Maitre 
d'H6tel Ordinaire. 

The military household of the King was revived 
on the same footing that it had held previously to 
the reforms which reasons of economy had suggested 



56 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

to Louis XVI. The companies of the body-guard, 
each of which had hitherto been four hundred men 
strong, including their supernumeraries, were en- 
larged to six hundred each, instead of four hundred. 
The first were commanded by the old titularies, — the 
Duke of Havr^-Cro'i, the Duke of Gramont, the 
Prince of Poix (Noailles), and the Duke of Luxem- 
bourg (Montmorency). The King gave the other 
two to Marshal Berthier, Duke of Wagram and Neuf- 
ch^tel, and Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragusa. 
Each of these six officers bore the title of Captain of 
the Body-guard. The two companies of light-horse 
and gendarmes of the guard, which were called " the 
red companies " because of their uniforms, were 
given, one to Count Charles de Damas, Lieutenant- 
Captain of the Light-horse of the Guard, and the 
other to Count Etienne de Durfort, with the title of 
Lieutenant-Captain of the Gendarmes of the Guard. 
Both of these men had been aides-de-camp of the 
Count of Artois. The companies of Royal Muske- 
teers, the gray and the black, — named so, because of 
the color of their horses, — were placed under the 
command of two generals who had belonged to the 
Imperial Army — the Count of Nansouty and the 
Marquis of Lagrange. The Marquis of Roche jaque- 
lein had command of the company of mounted grena- 
diers, which was made up of a hundred men chosen 
from the ranks of all arms. There were, besides, 
two other corps in the royal household — the guards 
of the gate and the guards of the provostship of the 



THE COURT 57 



hotel, whose business it also was to act as Guards of 
the Seals. The Count of Vergennes commanded the 
former, and the second were under the orders of the 
Count of Monsoreau, who acted as Grand Provost, 
holding the office in reversion from the Marquis of 
Tourzet, the titulary commander. 

Although he was one of the chiefs of the military 
household. Marshal Marmont criticised the institu- 
tion very severely : " That establishment," said he, 
" gave occasion for the creation of five thousand offi- 
cers, — subaltern, superior, or general. One may 
judge, at a glance, of the effect thus produced on the 
army at the very moment when the most far-reaching 
and least-understood reforms had struck at a multi- 
tude of brave officers, covered with glory and in the 
full vigor of manhood. The Abb^ Louis, with hard 
and sordid calculation, applied the reform to a great 
number of men at the very time when it was most 
important to attach the army to him, to make it feel 
secure, and to soften any hardships that the changes 
might impose upon it. And all this was done in 
order to save two millions when the military estab- 
lishment of the King was to cost more than three 
millions. One can hardly understand a course of 
conduct so unjust and so impolitic." 

Notwithstanding this, the Restoration, at the start, 
met with so much sympathy, especially from the 
middle classes of Paris, that the very military estab- 
lishment, which was destined so soon to become un- 
popular, was at first looked upon with favor. "It 



58 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULtME 



is difficult," says the Baron of VitroUes, " to show the 
extent to which the revival of those figures of times 
past pleased the people and public opinion. I saw 
the crowd press around the first detachments of light 
cavalry and gendarmes of the guard, and applaud 
their splendid uniforms overlaid with sleeveless 
white jackets, on which, both on breast and back, 
was a large red cross that seemed to date from the 
Crusades. Detestation of souvenirs and ancestor- 
worship had not yet been sown in their hearts." 

A thing that produced still more discontent in the 
army was the truly ridiculous prodigality with which 
rank was lavished on a few privileged persons. A 
question of etiquette, of dress, was the first cause of 
this scandal. Monsieur, the King's brother, told the 
Baron of VitroUes one day, that his sons, the princes, 
had asked him to keep his hair cut and not to use 
powder. " Who could have foreseen," adds the Baron, 
'' that the granting of this request would have impor- 
tant consequences ? There exist in nature no germs 
so hidden as the infinitely small causes of human 
events. The result was, that short and unpowdered 
hair precluded the use of dress coats at court. Dress 
coats having gone, men took to wearing uniforms ; 
a uniform makes epaulettes necessary ; old men of 
rank could not be content with the epaulettes of a 
sub-lieutenant ; so military rank was demanded, not 
for military services, but as due to one's station or 
age." 

General Dupont, the Minister of War, and the 



THE COUBT 59 



man who capitulated at Baylen, was, according to the 
severe expression of M. de Vitrolles, " the pander in 
this prostitution of rank and military crosses." Dur- 
ing the exile the Bourbons had bestowed neither 
military rank nor promotion. This wise abstention 
was observed so scrupulously that in 1814, when all 
the old general officers once more a|)peared upon the 
scene, there were only three lieutenant-generals in 
the royal army, — MM. de Viomesnil, de Vaubecourt 
and de Bethisi. Then General Dupont distributed 
many promotions which were connected with times 
long gone. Extreme confusion in all grades was the 
result of this. Louis XVIII., wishing to please the 
army, had adopted military dress instead of wearing 
the dress coat which the kings of France wore in all 
the courts of the last century. Following his exam- 
ple, every officer of the court wanted a military 
uniform. It was, as Marshal Marmont observes, an 
economical way of furnishing one's wardrobe. But, 
as not one of them had been in the service for twenty 
years, each found at first, that he had only a low- 
grade epaulette which he did not deem in harmony 
with the dignity with which he had been newly 
arrayed. The Marquis of Dreux-Brez^, who was only 
a captain and grand master of ceremonies, had him- 
self dubbed a lieutenant-general, and drew the salary 
of a man of that grade in active service. M. Just de 
Noailles received as his first grade, the title of major- 
general, when he was sent as ambassador to Russia. 
Count Blacas, opposed to this shameful distribution 



60 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

of titles, had the good taste repeatedly to decline the 
promotion with which General Dupont thought to 
please him. But the generality of the court habitues 
longed for braveries and big epaulettes. The officers 
of the Empire, who accepted Avithout difficulty the 
grades of the army of Conde and the army of La 
Vendue, had no patience with the court titles. 

Nevertheless it must be granted that the task of 
Louis XVIII. was very difficult, and that it would have 
been impossible at the same time to please the men 
of the two regimes, who bore so little resemblance to 
each other. With the best will in the world Louis 
XVIII. could not make the titles of the Empire as 
old as those of the Monarchy. Napoleon's marshals 
were exceedingly sensitive in regard to matters of 
precedence and etiquette. These parvenus of glory 
sometimes displayed the pettiness of tradesmen. In 
the matter of aristocratic pretensions they were per- 
haps more touchy than the dowagers of the Faubourg 
Saint-Germain. Having been accustomed under the 
Empire to lord it everywhere, the marshals especially 
desired to keep up their splendid position at court. 
The attitude of the men of the old regime disturbed 
them beyond measure. They took umbrage at every- 
thing. If one was reserved towards them, they 
thought he wished to keep them at a distance; if 
familiar with them, they thought him lacking in 
respect. A thousand unbecoming speeches that were 
made by the lords and ladies of the court are re- 
counted, these being either invented or exaggerated. 



THE COURT 61 



One of these ladies who, at a gather mg in the 
Tuileries, asked a stranger the name of a beautiful 
woman who had attracted her attention, received the 
answer : " We don't know those persons ; they are 
wives of marshals." ' An old-time duke, after a long 
conversation with Marshal Ney, is said to have re- 
marked to him in a caressing tone : " What a pity it 
is that you have not, as one of us, what it is impossi- 
ble to give you I " Louis XVIII., who liked M. De- 
cazes as much as MM. d'Avaray and de Blacas, and 
who set prodigious store by his own claims to nobil- 
ity but cared little for those of others, could not 
keep from smiling at dissensions like these, which 
had their basis in heraldry. 

On the whole, nobody was perfectly satisfied at 
court — neither the second-hand royalists, as the old 
followers of Napoleon were called, nor even the true 
royalists, who had always been faithful to their cause 
and to the white flag. The men of the Revolution 
and the Empire always wanted to be the masters. 
As Madame de Stael says, many who called them- 
selves patriots thought it strange that the King did 
not make up his council of men who had judged and 
condemned his brother. Carnot, the mouthpiece of 
the malecontents, said in a lampoon which had a wide 
circulation : " To-day if you want to appear with dis- 
tinction at court, you must be very careful to keep 
from saying that you are one of the twenty-five mil- 
lions of citizens who so gallantly defended their 
country against invasion by enemies ; for you will be 



62 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

told that those twenty-five million pretended citizens 
were twenty-five million rebels, and that those pre- 
tended enemies were always friends. Say that you 
were lucky enough to be a Chouan or a Vend^an, 
a refugee or a Cossack or an Englishman, or that 
though you remained in France, you sought place 
under the governments that preceded the Restoration 
only that you might the better betray them, and then 
your fidelity will be lauded to the skies, and you will 
receive delicate congratulations, decorations, and 
touching responses from the whole royal family." 

On the other hand, the old legitimists, the parti- 
sans of the throne and altar, said to themselves : 
" Was it worth while to suffer so much merely that 
we might be present at the spectacle that we wit- 
nessed on the very day of our triumph, — that day 
so long and so impatiently expected ? We who so 
ardently desired the Restoration at bivouacs of the 
army of Conde and amid the woes and humiliations 
of exile, — were we dreaming of such things? Could 
we ever have believed that the escorts of our kings 
would be made up of coryphees of the Revolution, of 
the satellites of Bonaparte? One would have said 
that it was we who had been defeated. What ! we 
cannot even make the Jacobin spoliators disgorge? 
We must not recover the so-called national property, 
which is our property, precisely as the throne is the 
property of the King. W^ith what are we reproached? 
With having emigrated. But did not the King and 
the princes emigrate also? Was not emigration a 
duty that we owed to honor and fidelity? Bonaparte 



THE COURT 63 



may be excused for making us suffer for it, but it is 
absurd and intolerable that Bourbons should bring 
it as an accusation against us. Did we impose upon 
ourselves so many privations, so many sacrifices, that 
we might put heart into Jacobins, butchers, and 
thieves ? Should not the day of the King's return 
have been the end of our misfortunes? We have 
suffered, — should we not share in the triumph ? 
True, we receive a few barren honors, a few court 
positions, but to whom go the real offices — those 
that give power ? Who is Minister of Foreign 
Affairs ? A bishop whose so-called wife is his con- 
cubine. Who is Minister of Finance ? A married 
priest. Who is Minister of War ? One of Napoleon's 
generals. Who are installed in the prefectures and 
military commands? Republicans, Bonapartists. It 
is they who receive every trust, every employment, 
every favor. It is we who are deceived and morti- 
fied, and ours is the ridicule of having expected so 
much from a government that treats us so badly ! 
We were better off at Coblentz, since at Coblentz 
we had illusions which here we have no longer. 
There are times when we have to look back with 
longing even to the days of our exile. What we see 
is no true Restoration ; it is a prolongation, or, rather, 
a parody, of the Revolution and the Empire." 

Such was the language of extremists on both sides, 
and to look at a court apparently so calm, so united, 
and so well disciplined, no one would have suspected 
the intrigues, jealousies, dissensions, and passions that 
were hidden within it. 



VII 



THE CITY 



WE have just taken a view of the court, and 
now let us cast a glance at the city. Paris 
was quiet enough at the beginning of the Restora- 
tion. After so much commotion and disturbance the 
masses were well pleased to have a little repose. 
When they thought of their children, mothers espe- 
cially were delighted at the return of peace. 

Tradesmen favored the Bourbons, and the people 
were not hostile to them. Commerce and industry 
began to look up, and, to judge from the general 
feeling of the city when the allied troops had de- 
parted, one would say that it was entirely normal. 

Some salons were open once more, but as spring 
was not then the fashionable season, there were very 
few fetes. Moreover, it required some time for soci- 
ety in the Faubourg Saint-Germain to reassume its 
splendor. In the words of Madame de Stael, very 
few agreeable members of the old regime were in 
Paris, for the aged were for the most part broken 
down through long-continued misfortunes or soured 
by inveterate indignation. The nobles who returned 
from exile were like shipwrecked sailors cast on the 
64 



THE CITY 65 

shore and still bewildered by the storm. Such as 
had been courtiers of Napoleon, and who but a short 
time before had frequented his house or that of the 
Empress Marie Louise, hoped to have their genuflec- 
tions before the imperial throne pardoned, should they 
be royalists for a few weeks. If they were to justify 
their sudden change, they must call the Emperor 
" Buonaparte '' an appreciable number of times. 

On the other hand, all were not of one mind 
in that society which called itself well disposed. 
Some people favored the charter; others opposed it. 
Liberal monarchists were continually criticised at 
court by legitimists more royalist than the King. 
Nobles might be met with who in their own minds 
looked upon Louis XVIII. as a revolutionist, not to 
say a crowned Jacobin, because he had been impru- 
dent enough to give his people their rights. " Par- 
bleu ! " said an old soldier of the army of Cond^ to 
Count de Puymaigre, "the King is really kind to 
bother himself so much about his charter. In order 
to put a stop to all our disputes I would have only 
one law, with two sections." — " Ah ! that's singular ; 
and what would your two sections be ? " " Well ! 
the first would run as follows : ' Everything is re-es- 
tablished in France just as it was on the 13th of July, 
1789.' " — " And the second ? " " The second ? It is 
even simpler : ' My ministers of war, of the interior, 
of finance, etc., are charged with the execution of the 
above ordinance.' " 

" And this man," M. de Puymaigre adds, " was not 



66 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

lacking in intelligence; but he was fixed in one 
idea, and thought that nothing had undergone any 
change." 

Salons in which such subjects were daily mooted 
could not have been very agreeable to men of the 
Revolution and the Empire. In the words of Ma- 
dame de Stael: "A society as insipid as this was 
regarded, however, with strange jealousy by many of 
Napoleon's old courtiers, and, like Samson, they would 
willingly have used their mighty hands to pull down 
the edifice, if so they might ruin the hall of feasting 
which they might not enter." 

Among the salons famous at the beginning of the 
Restoration were those of the Duchess of Duras, 
Madame de Stael, and Madame de Recamier. M. de 
Chateaubriand and his admirers frequented that of 
the duchess. Madame de Stael, always independent, 
and a furious enemy of Napoleon, though enthusiastic 
for Louis XVIII., held a liberal salon. That of 
Madame de Recamier, who was, above all, a pretty 
woman, was eclectic. Mathieu de Montmorency, 
who became gentleman-in-waiting to the Duchess of 
Angouleme, was often there, and was one of the chief 
admirers of the mistress of the house. 

There also might be seen a friend of Madame 
R^camier's t3hildhood days, Madame Moreau, the 
widow of the conqueror at Hohenlinden, and the wife 
of Bernadotte when he became Prince Royal of Swe- 
den. After the death of her husband, who was struck 
by a French bullet while in the Russian army, Ma- 



THE CITY 67 



dame Moreau received from the Emperor Alexander a 
pension of a hundred thousand francs. Louis XVIII. 
offered her the title of duchess ; she refused it, and 
would accept only such dignity as would have been 
her husband's had he been alive in 1814. The title 
"Marechale de France" was bestowed on her. She 
is, we think, the only woman who ever received that 
designation. Madame Bernadotte, or rather the Prin- 
cess Royal of Sweden, who in France bore the title 
of Countess of Gothland, had come to live at Paris 
after some experience of the climate of her future 
kingdom. 

To sum the whole matter up, the ways of the 
world were not as yet greatly changed. The appear- 
ance of Paris had undergone but few modifications. 
The attendance at theatres, caf^s, and on the prom- 
enades, was as large as it had been before. The 
galleries of the Palais-Royal were still a hotbed of 
corruption. The populace was neither more nor less 
moral under the Kingdom, than it had been under 
the Empire, and the inhabitants were not sensibly 
altered. 

However, two new elements might be observed in 
Paris, — office-seekers from the provinces and half- 
pay officers. Both should be carefully examined if 
one would have a correct idea of the appearance of 
the capital. It swarmed with a host of people who 
might be called honorable mendicants. Every small 
country squire innocently imagined that for him 
Paris was a land of promise, where all his dreams 



68 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUhtME 



would be turned into realities. Chouans covered 
with scars, Vend^ans reduced to penury, poverty- 
stricken emigrSs unable to find either their former 
dwellings or their families, passing before their old 
fields, now furrowed by alien ploughs, and eating the 
bread of charity at the doors of their former homes, 
— all had hoped that the Restoration would be for 
them a golden age at the end of an age of iron. 
They assailed the ministers with requests of all 
sorts. Representatives of the camp of Jalds came 
in the costume of their province and period. The 
streets thronged with these old emigres whom the 
officers called Louis XIV.'s light-infantry. These 
relics of a former time might be seen strutting about 
in blue coats with two fleur-de-lis embroidered on 
the collar, a frill, a s.word worn at right angles with 
the body, and small epaulettes which looked like sword 
knots cut in two. All these poor legitimists, thread- 
bare in their convictions as in their coats, came to 
the city filled with confidence. What illusions did 
they not create for themselves ! It is in the nature 
of modern monarchies that they should coquette with 
their enemies rather than their defenders. They say 
to themselves about their most ardent partisans : 
What is the use of paying particular attention to 
them? We shall always be sure of them, — and 
then they lavish their favors on persons who owe 
their success solely to the swiftness of their conver- 
sion, and to their cynical recantations. The unfortu- 
nate legitimists were soon called upon to meditate 



THE CITY 69 



on a caricature which represented the King as hold- 
ing out his hand to the Bonapartists and saying to 
them : " Union," and turning his back on the Ven- 
ddans, whom he seemed to dismiss with a disdainful 
gesture, while the motto written for them was : 
" Forgotten." 

M. de Vitrolles himself, ardent a royalist as he 
was, and favorite of Charles X. as he was to become, 
was the first to amuse himself with certain defenders 
of the throne and altar, and to speak ironically of the 
deluge of petitions, a few of which had some basis of 
right, but most of which were inadmissible or extrav- 
agant. He tells how, one day, the Minister of 
Marine, Baron Malouet, came to the Council with a 
number of petitions and, among them, that of an 
old naval officer who asked for the rank of a rear- 
admiral. The petitioner established his rights in 
this way. In 1789, he had been a cadet in the navy, 
and so the crime of having served the Revolution 
could not be imputed to him. He calculated that if 
he had remained in the service, and without refer- 
ence being had to the extraordinary promotions 
which he would have been sure to obtain, he would 
by this time, if only through seniority, have risen to 
the rank of rear-admiral, a grade which he claimed 
from the justice of the King. "What shall I tell 
him?" asked M. Malouet. "It seems to me," 
replied M. de Vitrolles, "that you may perfectly 
well admit all this gentleman's logic and even the 
conclusions he draws with it, as well as his rights in 



70 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



the matter ; but you should add that he has forgotten 
just one essential fact, which is, that he was killed 
at the battle of Trafalgar." King and courtiers 
burst out laughing, and the petition was thrown into 
the waste-paper basket. 

Apropos of such requests, Louis XVIII. used to 
say, by way of joke that in the Sj>ectator Addison 
had told the story of a pronounced Tory who, on the 
accession of Charles II. to the throne, solicited a 
place in the King's household, on the ground that he 
had betrayed the wife of one of the opponents of 
the Stuarts. Louis XVIII. , who was sly, was even 
the collaborator of M. de VitroUes and M. de Jouy 
in a certain anonymous satirical article which ap- 
peared in the Journal des Dehats on the 29th of 
May and the 2d of June, to the great disgust of more 
than one royalist. It was called : Lettres du Cousin 
et de la Cousine. " How happy I am, my friend," 
wrote the lady, " in the events that bring our illustri- 
ous princes back to the throne. What good for- 
tune ! You have no idea of the confidence which 
these events and your sojourn at Paris give me here. 
The prefect is afraid of me, and his wife, who had 
never before noticed me, has invited me twice to 
dinner. But we must lose no time, and we count on 
you. Would you believe it possible that as yet my 
husband has not taken a single step to have himself 
re-instated in his old place, on the pretext that the 
place no longer exists, and that he has been reim- 
bursed for his office in assignats. He is the most 



THE CITY 71 



apathetic man in France. My brother-in-law has 
received his cross of Saint Louis. He was not over 
nine years old when the Revolution broke out. It 
wouldn't have been right for them to refuse to add 
to the number of his services the twenty years of 
trouble and misfortune that he had spent on his 
estate." 

Then the lady mentioned her proteges to her 
influential cousin : " You remember poor N. . . . He 
really was noted in the days of the Revolution ; but, 
on my word, it is a full month since he recanted ! 
You know that he is penniless, and that he is ready 
to sacrifice his all for our masters. His devotion to 
them leads him to desire the office of a prefect, for 
the duties of which he is well fitted. You remember 
the pretty song he composed for me. ... I must not 
forget to recommend B. to you. . . . He is accused 
of having served all parties because he was employed 
by all the governments which have succeeded each 
other in France during the last twenty j^ears ; but, 
believe me, he is a good fellow ; he was the first per- 
son here to don the white cockade. Besides, he only 
wants to keep his place as postmaster. Be careful 
to write to me under cover to him." 

The cousin's answer, in which is shown all the 
caustic verve of the sovereign whom Talleyrand 
called the " roi nicliard^^ is a small masterpiece of 
witty malice. "You cannot think, my dear cousin, 
with how much interest I read the letter you did me 
the honor to write, and how anxious I have been to 



72 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

further the mterests — mterests so just and so legiti- 
mate — of everybody you recommend to me. You 
will not be more astonished than I was at the 
obstacles that stood in my way, and which you 
would deein insurmountable if you did not know 
as well as I the people with whom we have to deal. 
When I spoke of your eldest son, who always wished 
to enter the army, and when I asked that he should 
be appointed major of the regiment in which his 
father formerly served, I was met with the objection 
— as if it had any weight ! — that we are now at 
peace, and that before thinking of making an officer 
of M. de S. F., provision would have to be made for 
twenty-five thousand officers, some of whom — - 
would you believe it? — had taken advantage of 
their campaigns, and their scars, and even gone so 
far as to base their claims on the score of the battles 
in which they had fought, while the rest, who were 
more closely associated with the misfortunes of the 
royal family, had come back to France with no 
other prospects than the favors and promises of the 
King. I inquired, with some heat, what they 
intended to do for your son and the host of royalists 
who had grieved in secret over the woes of the State, 
and had always desired the return of the Bourbons 
to the throne of their ancestors. The answer was 
that they would have the pleasure of seeing their 
misfortunes ended and their desires accomplished." 

So there is little hope for the proteges of the lady. 
In fact, her cousin gives her very little encourage- 



THE CITY 73 



ment. " I am sorry," he adds, " that your brother-in- 
law regained the cross of Saint Louis before he had 
ever worn it; for it is possible that the King would 
not have relinquished the right to confer it him- 
self or recognized the justice which certain persons 
are bent on doing to themselves. I presented a 
petition in favor of N., at the end of which I had 
inserted the little song that he made for you, but 
they insisted very strongly upon it that such things 
were not sufficient to entitle a man even to an insig- 
nificant prefecture." 

And the cousin comes to the following mournful 
conclusion : " The upshot, my dear cousin, is, you 
see, that you must arm yourself with patience. I 
will even say that it is to be feared that your pro- 
posed visit to Paris will not greatly expedite mat- 
ters. At the time when I am writing to you there 
are a hundred and twenty-three thousand provincials 
of every class and age and of both sexes on the 
police lists, who have come here to prefer claims, 
armed with titles nearly as unquestionable as yours 
and having an inestimable advantage over you in the 
fact that their claims were put in before yours." 

And the unfortunate legitimists were sad at heart 
over this satirical piece of work which was due to 
the witty collaboration of the King, M. de Vitrolles, 
and M. de Jouy. " What's this ? " they cried. 
" The Restoration does nothing in our behalf. It is 
powerless to mend the evils we have endured for it, 
and yet it permits us to be publicly insulted in news- 
papers which it ought to suppress I " 



74 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Demands, however, continued to pour in in num- 
bers not less than fabulous. " On the day of the 
downfall of Bonaparte," says Madame de Stael, 
" they were as busy all over France as at Paris, and 
at Paris there were thousands of people asking the 
government for money and places of all sorts. How 
incredible is the madness of the desire for power ! 
The first article in ' the rights of man ' in France is 
that every Frenchman shall have public employment. 
The importunate class do not know how to live save 
on government money. No industry or business 
could make life tolerable to them." But among 
these importunate persons how many interesting 
people there were ! Of how many thousands of 
employees of all sorts, custom-house officials, asses- 
sors of taxes, police officers, and departmental 
functionaries was not France left bereft who, having 
neither salary nor asylum, died of starvation in Paris, 
together with their wives and children ! 

The most dangerous, bold, and popular of the male- 
contents were the half-pay officers, the former con- 
querors of Europe, now much astonished at finding 
themselves conquered. Can one not see them stroll- 
ing about in civilian dress, but always with a mili- 
tary look, gait, and manner of speech, with an aspect 
fierce in spite of their misfortunes, a bitter smile on 
their lips, felt hats on their heads, and walking-sticks 
in their hands ? Can you not see, can you not hear, 
them at the Palais-Royal, on the Boulevard des 
Italiens, in the cafes, sneering at men and things. 



THE CITT 75 



railing pitilessly at everybody and everything except 
the Emperor and the Empire, making merry over the 
impotent Louis XVIII. and his well-known infirmi- 
ties, and treating as renegades and traitors the mar- 
shals and generals who throng the antechambers of 
the King and his ministers ? 

The Duchess of Abrant^s tells us that one morn- 
ing five persons gravely entered Tortoni's and seated 
themselves at a table. They called for the bill of fare 
and looked around disdainfully, without seeming to 
pay any attention to the surrounding company, which 
laughed at the strangeness of their clothes and gen- 
eral appearance. They were all dressed alike, in 
little threadbare coats, half-gilt epaulettes of mari- 
gold color, short breeches, checkered hose, small hats, 
and long swords worn diagonally across their coat- 
skirts. After a long time spent in poring over the 
landlord's bill of fare, these grave personages ended 
by calling for a cutlet for five. The waiter looked at 
them in total bewilderment. The cutlet was brought, 
and they breakfasted on it, accompanying their repast 
with conversation as singular as their appearance. 
These five self-styled emigres were officers in disguise, 
and among them was the future general de Lawoe- 
stine, an ardent Bonapartist in spite of his old-time 
name and his title of Marquis. Jests and pleasan- 
tries from the barracks are the prelude to military 
sedition. It will not be long before the half-pay 
officers will enter the Tuileries as conquerors and 
replace the tricolor on the Pavilion of the Horloge. 



VIII 



THE KING 



WE have just cast a rapid glance at the court 
and the city. Let us now endeavor to draw 
a picture of the King, the royal family, and the 
princes of the blood. We shall begin with Louis 
XVIIL, whose personal appearance, character, and 
habits we wish to describe accurately. We shall ask 
ourselves these questions : Was Louis XVIIL relig- 
ious ? Was he moral ? Was he good ? Was he intel- 
ligent ? Was he able ? and we shall answer by draw- 
ing the elements of our response from the memoirs 
of men who knew the King exceedingly well. We 
think that their testimony, when grouped and com- 
pared, will enable us to arrive at the truth and paint 
a true instead of an imaginative picture. 

Lamartine, whose magic pen embellishes beyond 
measure all that he writes about, has displayed Louis 
XVIII.'s personal appearance in colors which, in our 
opinion, are too brilliant. The poet more than ideal- 
izes the King. "In studying him," says he, "one 
could not fail to admire him. . . . His large eyes of 
celestial blue, with sockets oval at the bend and high 
at the top, were luminous, sparklmg, liquid, and 
76 



THE KING 77 



frank. The nose was aquiline, as it always is among 
the Bourbons ; his lips were usually slightly parted, 
his mouth smiling and refined, and his cheeks full, 
though their fulness did not efface the delicacy of 
their outlines and the suppleness of their muscles. 
A healthy complexion and the vivid freshness of 
youth tinged his face. In beauty the features were 
those of Louis XV., but they were illuminated by 
larger intelligence and a more concentrated power of 
thought in the whole countenance. Even majesty 
was not lacking to them; his physiognomy spoke, 
questioned, answered, controlled." 

And the singer of the " Harmonies " adds in his 
customary lyric way: "In whatever aspect one re- 
garded that presence, thoughtful and self-contained, 
dominating yet sweet, severe yet attractive, one 
would not have said : ' He's a sage, he's a states- 
man, he's a pontiff, he's a legislator, he's a con- 
queror,' for his natural repose and quiet majesty 
removed all likeness to such professions, which make 
the face pale and the features sunken ; one would 
have said : ' He is a king I but he is a king who has 
not yet experienced the cares and the fatigues of the 
throne.' " 

M. de Lamartine began his career as a member of 
Louis XVIII.'s body-guard. The founder of the 
second republic was then an enthusiastic royalist. 
When, in his old age, he evoked the image of the 
King of his early days, he became a royalist again 
for a moment, and his imagination called up a 



78 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Louis XVIII. handsomer than the reality. In 1814 
republicans and Bonapartists regarded the King in 
an utterly different light. The prince whom the 
royalists found so majestic, appeared to their vision 
as a gouty old man, dressed in superannuated clothes, 
awkward in carriage, without prestige, and almost 
ridiculous. 

In our opinion the truth lies between these two 
exaggerations. Without being so handsome as his 
admirers said it was, the physiognomy of Louis 
XVIII. was both charming and dignified. His coun- 
tenance was animated, his mouth refined, his voice 
sonorous, and his movements symmetrical. Born on 
the 17th of November, 1755, he was fifty-eight years 
old at the outset of the Restoration. His body, borne 
down by infirmities, and especially by gout, was that 
of an aged man, but his face still retained something 
of youth. We do not think that Lamartine exagger- 
ates when he thus expresses himself : " One would 
say that time, exile, fatigues, infirmities, and his 
unwieldy obesity had attacked his feet and body only 
to bring out more fully by contrast the perennial and 
vigorous youthfulness of his face." Marshal Mar- 
mont, who is harsh rather than sympathetic when 
speaking of the King, says : " There was something 
winning in his manners, gracious in his way of speak- 
ing, alluring in his words, and strong and authorita- 
tive in his whole aspect. I have never met it to the 
same degree in anybody else." 

We think M. de VitroUes equally right when 



THE KING 79 



he says of Louis XVIII. : " The noble expression of 
his features, his beautiful and sonorous voice, and his 
whole regal appearance commanded respect in spite 
of his ill-proportioned figure. Even the disadvan- 
tages under which he labored by reason of his infirm- 
ities, the difQculty with which he walked and his ex- 
cessive fatness, seemed to give a sort of dignity to his 
person. He knew how to make them nobler than 
grace and agility. In the eyes of men who had been 
attached to the hardy chieftain who but lately had 
dominated France, he was in strong contrast with 
their old leader." As M. Thiers says in his account 
of the formal entry of the King into Paris : " However 
much enamoured of peace he may have been, as every- 
body was at that time, one could not help regretting 
that the prince who had been recalled to govern France 
was unable to mount a horse, and public fancy natu- 
rally reverted to a picture, reproduced at the time, of 
an aged father coming in, surrounded by his chil- 
dren." 

Obliged by his infirmities to remain constantly 
seated in an armchair, Louis XVIII. was artist 
enough to make the chair a sort of throne. I see him 
gravely installed there, in clothes half-military and 
half-civilian. He wanted to wear boots, for a king is 
a general, and a general should be booted. But leather 
boots hurt his legs, which were gouty. So he had to 
be content with velvet boots reaching to his knees. 
He never laid his sword aside, even in his armchair, 
for a sword is the distinctive sign of a nobleman, 



80 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

and the Most Christian King is the first nobleman 
not only in France and Navarre, but in the whole 
world. His breast is covered with heraldic orders. 
The blue cordon of the Holy Ghost stands out in re- 
lief on his white waistcoat. His blue coat is neither 
civilian dress nor uniform. Two small golden epau- 
lettes glitter on his shoulders to remind people of 
the military nature of kingship. His hair, dressed 
with white powder according to the old fashion, and 
crimped at the temples by the barber's curling-irons, 
is brought together at the nape of the neck and 
bound with a black silk ribbon that falls down over 
the collar. A three-cornered hat, adorned with a 
cockade and a small white plume, is now on the mon- 
arch's knees and now in his hand. His entire costume, 
reminding one of two different eras, is at one and the 
same time that of a man of the court of Versailles 
and that of a man of the nineteenth century. 

After having examined Louis XVIH.'s personal 
appearance, let us examine his character and bring 
forward the questions mentioned at the opening of 
the present chapter. Was Louis XVIH. religious? 
Although he showed himself respectful toward the 
faith of his fathers both in speech and act, the author 
of the Crenie du Christianisme represents him as a 
sceptic ; Chateaubriand says : " Affected with the 
spirit of his time, it is to be feared that to the Most 
Christian King religion was only an elixir fit for 
use in compounding the drugs that go to make 
up royalty." Enthusiastic royalists and ultra-Cath- 



THE KING 81 



olics accused Louis XVIII. of being at bottom a 
Voltairian. It is not necessary to penetrate into 
the recesses of his soul and determine the extent 
of his religious faith. But it should be said that he 
believed in the necessary connection of the throne 
and altar, that he went to Mass not only on Sunday, 
but on every" other day of the week, that he showed 
great respect for the clergy, that he would allow of 
no jest at religion in his presence, and that he died a 
very good Christian. 

Was Louis XVIII. moral? He was less devoted 
to women than his predecessors. Let us listen to 
Chateaubriand, who was so enthusiastic in his sub- 
ventioned writings and so caustic in his Memoires 
d" Outre-Tomhe : " The libertine imagination that he 
inherited from his grandfather," says he of Louis 
XVIIL, " must have aroused some distrust in regard 
to his exploits ; but he understood himself and, when 
he made positive affirmations, he laughed at himself 
for the boasting he was doing. One day I spoke to 
him of the necessity of a new marriage for the Duke 
of Bourbon in order to restore the race of the Cond^s 
to life. He strongly approved of the idea although 
he did not trouble himself about the said resur- 
rection. But apropos of the subject, he mentioned 
the Count of Artois, and said: 'My brother might 
remarry and still not change the royal succession; 
he could beget only younger sons ; as to myself, 
all who might be begotten by me would be eldest 
sons ; I do not choose to disinherit the Duke of 



82 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



Angoul^me.' He bridled up with an air of whim- 
sical importance, but I did not pretend to deny any 
sort of ability to the King." 

To sum up, perhaps there was not much merit 
in the tranquil life led by Louis XVIII., but it 
is certain that in the early times of the Restoration 
the general appearance of the court was rather 
austere than lively. There was as yet no question 
of a favorite. 

Was Louis XVIII. kind and good? Opinion is 
divided as to this. Let us see how Chateaubriand 
contradicts himself. What does he say in one of his 
perfunctory writings : Le roi est Mort, vive le Roi ? 
" In the presence of Louis XVIII. one had feelings 
of mingled confidence and respect. The benevolence 
of his heart was shown in what he said ; the great- 
ness of his race appeared in his aspect. Indul- 
gent and generous, he reassured those who might 
accuse themselves of wrongdoing; ever calm and 
reasonable, one might tell him everything, for he 
could understand everything." And how does the 
same writer speak in regard to the King in his 
Memoir es d' Outre-Tomhe ? " An egotist and without 
prejudices, Louis XVIII. wanted peace at any price. 
He upheld his ministers as long as they were 
with the majority; he dismissed them as soon as 
that majority began to totter and his repose might 
be disturbed! He did not hesitate to draw back 
as soon as it would have been necessary to take but 
one step forward • in order to gain the victory. . . . 



THE KING 83 



Without being cruel, this King was not humane. 
Tragic catastrophes neither surprised nor touched 
him. To the Duke of Berry, who excused himself 
for having had the misfortune to disturb the king's 
slumber by dying, he was content to say : ' I had my 
sleep out.' Nevertheless this imperturbable man flew 
into a horrible rage whenever he was contradicted, 
and, in fine, this prince, so cold and insensible, had 
mental affections that closely resembled passions ; 
thus Count d'Avaray, M. de Blacas, M. Decazes, 
Madame de Balbi, and Madame du Cayla were in 
turn his intimate friends ; all these beloved persons 
were favorites ; unfortunately too many letters fell 
into their hands." 

These criticisms seem to us a little harsh. Was 
not the favoritism of which Louis XVIII. is so often 
accused a necessity of friendship? A childless 
widower, his essential need was that of a friend, a 
confidant, another self, whom he could admit to all 
his thoughts, to all his troubles ; and the persons 
whom he definitively honored with close affection, 
received only benefits from him in return for what 
they gave. Let us add that Louis XVIII. was an 
accomplished host; it was he who made the cele- 
brated remark : " Punctuality is the politeness of 
kings " ; he had the gift of saying amiable and pleas- 
ing things, and, besides this, he vv^as generous and 
delicate in making presents. There was a depth of 
moderation, wisdom, and indulgence in his character. 
He was not cruel : he did not like war ; he did not 



84 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 



even punish criminals, except when he believed their 
chastisement not only necessary but indispensable 
from a political point of view; and we think that 
Marshal Marmont was right in saying : " His heart 
was generous and kindly when the passions of the 
people about him did not hinder him from showing 
his true character." 

Was Louis XVIII. intelligent? All are agreed on 
this topic. Had he not been King, still Louis XVIII. 
would have held his own among the most intelligent 
men of this epoch, — even beside M. de Talleyrand 
himself. Unlike those emigres^ of whom it was said 
that they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, 
he had learned much and retained much. It was al- 
ways noticed that in familiar conversation, as well as 
in his responses to addresses and public speeches, 
his expressions were appropriate, and his ideas to 
the point. He was well educated, and no one was 
better versed than he in Latin authors, especially 
Horace, his favorite poet, and one whom he quoted 
with great propriety. He was a fine conversationalist. 
Being a man of ability, he was fond of literature, and, 
as sovereign, he protected it. Nevertheless Mar- 
shal Marmont, though he recognized the King's 
intelligence, makes some exceptions: "His intellect," 
says he, " which was far too highly praised, was often 
at fault. His prodigious memory and exceedingly 
wide reading afforded him the means of making the 
most extraordinary tours de force and astonishing 
his auditors, but, so far as serious discussion is con- 



THE KING 85 



cerned, his abilities were of the flimsiest. His brain, 
which could retain everything, produced nothing. 
He never went so far as to give three reasons in de- 
fence of a preconceived opinion. Serious in the most 
trifling matters, he had a notion that he could rouse 
admiration by employing pretentious and often very 
ridiculous phrases. . . . Having seen much, he had 
a great store of anecdotes which he told agreeably ; 
but persons who, like myself, had long been on 
intimate terms with him, knew them by heart, but 
though he was perfectly aware of this he never failed 
to repeat them." 

It has been said that no man is great to his valet. 
May it not be added that no sovereign is wise to his 
courtiers? The Duke of Ragusa saw Louis XYHI. 
too frequently, and that is why he criticises him. 
Moreover, his criticisms seem to us somewhat over- 
stated. He accuses Louis XYHI. of being at a loss 
for arguments during a discussion ; kings do not 
discuss, they decide. The Marshal accuses him of 
telling the same story over and over again; but 
what anecdotist does not repeat himself? He says 
that his brain was incapable of originating anything ; 
but one does not expect a wit to create works of 
imagination. In any case it is certain that every- 
body who came to the court felt the charm of the 
King's conversation. The Duchess of Abrantes, who 
was intelligent herself, says in her Memoirs: "I 
found Louis XVIII. a man of great learning and 
profound wisdom, and endowed with large knowl- 



86 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULtlME 



edge of men. On one occasion, especially, I was 
with him for three-quarters of an hour, and assuredly 
I do not regret the attention I gave to what he said 
to me. He conversed with rare talent." In fine, we 
do not hesitate, in answer to the question: "Was 
Louis XVIII. intelligent ? " to reply that he was 
very intelligent. 

Was Louis XVIII. able ? His ability is as incon- 
testable as his intelligence. In an era of scepticism 
he had from the outset the great merit of believing 
and making others believe in himself and his cause. 
On this essential point Chateaubriand, even in his 
Memoir es d' Outre- Tomhe, does him full justice : 
"Louis XVIIL," says he, "never forgot the pre- 
eminence of his birth ; he was everywhere king, 
as God is God everywhere ; in a crib or in a 
temple, on a golden altar or on one of clay. Evil 
fortune never wrested from him the least concession ; 
his haughtiness gained assurance even, by reason of 
his low estate ; he had the appearance of saying : 
' Kill me ! You will not kill the centuries written 
on my brow.' The fixed idea of the grandeur, the 
antiquity, the dignity, and the majesty of his race 
gave to Louis XVIIL a veritable empire. Even the 
generals of Bonaparte acknowledged its dominion. 
They were more intimidated when in the presence of 
this impotent old man than in the presence of the 
terrible master who had commanded them in a hun- 
dred battles. The unshaken faith of Louis XVIIL 
in his blood is the real force that put the sceptre 



THE KING 87 



into his hand. The exile without an army made his 
appearance at the close of all the battles which he 
had not fought. Louis XVIII. was legitimacy incar- 
nate ; when he disappeared, legitimacy was no longer 
to be seen." 

This faith in the monarchical cause was a supreme 
ability. The first merit of a priest is belief in re- 
ligion. The first merit of a king is belief in royalty. 
Louis XVIII. had another secret, fit for kings. He 
never hurried. Most politicians exhaust themselves 
in fruitless excitements. He was disturbed neither 
by the inexpediency of impatience nor the dangers 
of hasty action. His sluggishness was the result of 
calculation, his temporizing was a force. Nothing 
intimidated, nothing took him by surprise. He was 
not always master of others, but he was always 
master of himself. No one knew better than he the 
hardships of being an emigre^ and no one ever found 
him falling into the exaggerated way of speaking 
common among those about him. He never went to 
extremes, but was, if one may so express himself, 
a "golden mean," a sovereign, an umpire, a moder- 
ator, a king, and a philosopher at the same time. As 
Lamartine says : " He v/as obliged, by complaisance 
and weakness, to feign more hatred and contempt for 
the Revolution than he really felt. At bottom he 
was well disposed towards a revolution that had re- 
stored him to his throne, and which agreed with him 
in establishing it firmly through the power of the 
opinions which had of late come into vogue. His 



88 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

mind was rejuvenated by reflection, just as his body 
had grown old by years. He was a king of the past, 
but he was a man of his day. Let us say the word : 
his memories came from habit ; his forecasts from 
genius. At need, he was energetic and could enforce 
his will." " King Louis XVIII. had a cold heart and 
a liberal mind," said M. Guizot. "The anger and 
bad temper of his relatives ha'd little effect, when 
once he had decided not to let it trouble him. It 
was his pride and his pleasure to think himself more 
clear-headed and more politic than the rest of his 
family, and to act on his own opinion with entire 
independence." 

Although, in general, Louis XVIII. was very 
highly esteemed for his sagacity, yet he had his 
detractors among noted statesmen who judged with 
great severity of his work. Prince Metternich 
thought that the author of the Charter was thor- 
oughly in error, and that a liberal Restoration could 
be nothing but an expedient and not a solution. 
He wrote to Count Apponyi on the 2d of July, 
1827: "Napoleon, of whom it cannot be denied 
that he had the sentiment of power, said to me one 
day : ' You see me master of France. Well, I would 
not undertake to govern it for three months under 
a free press.' Louis XVIIL, seemingly thinking 
himself stronger than Napoleon, was not content 
to allow freedom to the press, but expressly made 
it free by the terms of the Charter." 

According to the Austrian statesman: "In 1814 



THE KING 89 



everything should have been done in France except 
what actually was done. Grant that Louis XVIII. 
was Frenchman enough to have all the national 
defects, grant that, little by little, he could have 
gained popularity without exposing the throne and 
the nation to another revolution by evoking the 
principles in which the Revolution had its rise, 
it is still certain that he was mistaken in either 
case, and that the results of his error would of 
necessity have been disastrous. By resting the 
restored throne on the principles of the Constitu- 
ent Assembly, applied, indeed, with moderation, he 
caused the return of the Revolution which Napoleon 
had overthrown. This was to erect a throne sur- 
rounded Avith republican institutions — an invention 
of which Louis XVIII. is the author." 

Did Prince Metternich, then, wish for the re- 
establishment of the old regime? No. What he 
desired was the imperial regime enforced by royalty. 
He says: "Louis XVIII. had the choice, not between 
the return of what had come to be called the old 
regime, — impossible now, since men cannot return 
to things the very principles of which have been 
destroyed, — but between a new monarchical order 
applied on monarchical bases and a state of affairs 
which, under the name of monarch}^, surrounded 
the throne with republican institutions. Instead of 
establishing the throne, as Bonaparte did, on frankly 
monarchical foundations, Louis XVIII. founded it 
on the moderate principles of the liberalism of 1789. 



90 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



... It is the misfortune of France to be ungovern- 
able, and she is in this lamentable condition because 
the fragments of a social revolution are poor mate- 
rials for reconstruction, and because Louis XVIII. 
was a wretched architect. In the last and longest 
conversation accorded to me by the King before 
my departure from Paris, I said to him : ' Without 
wishing to do so, your government is substantially 
on the way to revive the Revolution of 1789. The 
Restoration seems to have come to life only to give 
the seal of legality to doctrines and acts which 
had not that sanction till the Restoration was brought 
about,' The mind of Louis XVIII. was strongly 
impregnated wdth the good and bad characteristics 
of the French mind in general, — that strange amal- 
gam of serious qualities and an amount of levity 
that renders actions incalculable and stands in the 
way of foreseeing what will happen." 

And so to the Austrian statesman Louis XVIII. 
was a mere Utopian, a doctrinaire. But the ideas of 
Prince Metternich have to be discounted. He was 
the born enemy of parliamentarism, against which he 
waged a war from which he did not come out victo- 
rious. We are inclined to believe that since it was 
not in the power of the Restoration to give glory, it 
ought to have given liberty. However that may be, 
the fact should be remembered that the system inau- 
gurated by the author of the Charter was followed 
by all succeeding governments, and that this prince 
remains the type of a constitutional sovereign. 



THE KING 91 



Having studied Louis XVIII. in his physique and 
morals, let us now see how he lived at the Tuileries. 
The King's life was regulated most methodically, and 
every hour had its regular and invariable use. He 
rose at seven o'clock, received the first gentleman of 
the bedchamber or M. de Blacas till eight, held his 
business meeting at nine, breakfasted at ten with 
attendants and persons who had been authorized, 
once for all, to come at all hours ; that is to say, with 
the titularies of important court offices and the heads 
of the various departments of the royal household. 
The Duchess of Angouleme and one or two of her 
ladies were present at this breakfast and withdrew 
at five minutes to eleven. From five minutes to 
eleven till the clock struck, the royal amphitryon 
often told some rather broad story to cheer up his 
convives. Exactly at eleven o'clock he dismissed 
them, and gave audiences till noon, when he re- 
ceived men of the most prominence and the distin- 
guished foreigners who were passing through France. 
" Here," says Lamartine, " this prince really enjoyed 
his throne. In order to appear less great, he de- 
scended to all the familiarities of conversation. . . . 
He liked to please and charm those with whom he 
talked ; he reigned by his attractive qualities ; he felt 
and made others feel that he was the brightest man 
in the kingdom. This was the sceptre personal to 
himself ; he would not have exchanged it for that to 
which he was born." At noon the King went to Mass 
attended by his retinue, which was always composed 
of at least twenty persons. Upon returning from the 



92 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

chapel of the chateau, he received his ministers when 
they wished to consult him, or his council, which he 
held once a week, and which never remained in ses- 
sion for more than an hour. When it was two, three, 
or four o'clock, according to the season, he went for 
a drive in his large travelling-carriage, and sometimes 
made four, five, or even ten leagues, the horses run- 
ning at full speed; for he considered rapid driving 
indispensable to his health. He felt stifled if the 
horses went slowly or even at a trot. He must have 
full gallop. And this dizzy speed tired his numerous 
escort greatly. Relays of steeds and detachments of 
troops stationed at intervals gave employment to 
nearly three hundred horses for these daily drives of 
the King. He dined at six o'clock with the Duchess 
of Angouleme and members of the royal family, and 
ate with good appetite. He was a gourmet, and his 
pretensions in the line of gastronomy were perfectly 
justified. Dinner lasted till seven o'clock. The 
royal family were together till eight. Then people 
who had the entree might ask for admittance ; they 
were received, sometimes individually and sometimes 
in groups. At nine, Louis XVIH. went to the coun- 
cil-room and gave out the countersign ; that is to say, 
the countersign of the chateau. A few persons had 
the right to be present at this time. They profited 
by it to pay court to the sovereign. This business 
commonly occupied five minutes, and then the King 
retired, after saying a few words, always kindly, to 
every person present. To-morrow was like yesterday, 
and the royal life went on with majestic monotony. 



IX 



MONSIEUR 



BORN at Versailles on the Sth of October, 1757, 
and, since the 2d of June, 1805, the widower 
of Marie Therese of Savoy, Monsieur — for so the 
Count of Artois, who was subsequently to reign 
under the name of Charles X., was called by virtue 
of his position as brother of Louis XVIII. — was 
fifty-six years old at the beginning of the Restora- 
tion. While the King already looked like an aged 
man. Monsieur, who was only two years younger, 
still preserved the grace and elegance of youth. 
The two brothers resembled each other in morals no 
more than in physique. Their appearance, their bear- 
ing, their faces, and their ideas were in absolute con- 
trast. The Count of Artois, slender and handsomely 
formed, accustomed to bodily exercise, was not only 
a great pedestrian and huntsman, but an accom- 
plished horseman. The face of Louis XVIII. was 
grave ; that of the Count of Artois always pleasant 
and smiling. There were certain modern aspects in 
the character and opinions of Louis XVIII. ; the 
Count of Artois was essentially a man of the old 
regime, a grand seigneur of the court of Versailles, a 



94 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

prince after the Smigres' own heart. The one looked 
upon the reforms that had been brought about as 
necessary and even indispensable ; the other was con- 
vinced that the Revolution had been the most disas- 
trous, as it was the most sterile, of convulsions. One 
looked forward to the future ; the other shut himself 
up in the past. One wished to be a man of the times ; 
the other would have been glad had he been able to 
go back to the days of the Crusades. One emigrated 
only when nothing else was left for him to do ; the 
other was the first to give the signal for flight. In 
exile as at the court of Louis XVI., and at the 
Tuileries as in exile, they had pursued different 
courses. The liberal royalists extolled Louis XVIII.; 
the Count of Artois was the idol -of the absolutist 
royalists. 

The two opposed systems, which first were face to 
face at Versailles, and then again during the exile, 
again found themselves at war after the return of 
the Bourbons to France. The Count of Artois, 
whose lieutenant-generalship had given him a taste 
for power, did not wish to give up politics. At the 
Pavilion de Marsan he had organized, or at least had 
tried to organize, a sort of State within the State. 
For the sake of Monsieur, the King's brother, a bu- 
reau of information was established at the entresol of 
the Pavilion, under the direction of MM. de la Mai- 
sonfort and Perrier de Monciel. M. de Vitrolles had 
put this bureau into operation on the very day when 
the Count of Artois entered Paris. According to 



MONSIEUR 95 



Lamartine, the whole policy of the King's brother 
consisted of secret intrigues, police espionage, contin- 
gent plans of government, encouragement for ultra- 
royalist writers, and court subsidies for sycophantic 
and hungry authors. This was only a policy of mys- 
tification. When his brother was not present, the 
Count of Artois allowed bitter criticisms of the course 
of the government to be made. In the King's pres- 
ence he was submission itself. Louis XVIII. had 
established strict discipline at court, and no member 
of his family dared to censure him. The petty 
intrigues of the Pavilion de Marsan were carried on 
surreptitiously, and sometimes even the King was 
ignorant of their existence, so greatly did people fear 
to disturb him in his repose. 

Being an extreme optimist, the Count of Artois 
did not understand the political difficulties of the 
situation, and innocently imagined that if he had 
been allowed to act, he would have satisfied every- 
body. The magnificent reception given to him in 
Paris on the 12th of April, 1814, had dazed him. He 
judged the Restoration by that first day, just as some 
people judge of a marriage by the honeymoon. When 
he entered the Tuileries he was in an ecstasy. Every- 
thing filled him with joy ; everything ravished him. 
"Would you believe," said he to Count Beugnot, 
" that I heard a hundred times at Versailles that 
there was not elbow-room at the Tuileries, that it 
consisted of garrets and holes, and behold I the 
rooms are commodious and magnificent!" He v/as so 



96 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

happy that he thought everybody else must be happy 
too. The miseries of exile had not weakened his 
bent for seeing everything in a rose-colored light. 
He was a man perpetually under illusions. When 
he left Versailles, in 1789, he imagined that he was 
to return within three months. At the outset of the 
Restoration he was convinced that the Revolution 
had forever disappeared, and that France and the 
Bourbons were to be indissolubly in accord. Heed- 
lessly prodigal of fair words and promises, carry- 
ing courtesy to the point of exaggeration, affable 
even to the extent of making himself commonplace, 
a man of the world rather than a prince, he had the 
gift of pleasing, and the liberals themselves pardoned 
his retrograde opinions because of his kindly deport- 
ment. Superficial and not well educated, he was not 
without some intelligence, and, notwithstanding his 
great piety, his worldly conversation pleased the 
ladies more than the learned quotations and harmoni- 
ous periods of his brother. Before all, he was a 
courtier, a man of the salons. He was affable to 
his acquaintances, good to his sons, affectionate to 
his niece and daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Angou- 
16me, and had the art of consoling with a smile the 
poor Smigres who returned to their provinces without 
having been able to obtain anj^thing from the King 
and his ministers, and he enjoyed real popularity 
among the ultra-roj^alists by reason of his disposition, 
his manners, and his courteous language. 

The household of Monsieur was composed of men 



MONSIEUB 97 



who were faithful personal attendants and sincere 
admirers of his political ideas. His chief equerry 
was Count Armand de Polignac ; his first gentlemen 
of the bedchamber were the Duke of Maille and the 
Duke of Fitz James ; and his first almoner, the Abb^ 
de Latil. By his conversation this virtuous ecclesias- 
tic recalled to him touching and mournful memories ; 
for the Prince, who, at the end of the old regime, 
had led a very idle and dissolute life, became a pious 
and exemplary Christian during the emigration. The 
death of his well-beloved, the beautiful and poetic 
Countess of Polastron, had wrought this change as 
by miracle. In her curious and still unpublished 
memoirs the Duchess of Gontaut, who was a relative 
of Mme. de Plastron, describes the last moments of 
that clever and affectionate woman : " The doors of 
the salon were open ; Monsieur did not venture to 
enter; I was with her, I held her hand, she was 
trembling. She saw Monsieur, who was about to 
spring to her side. ' Don't come in ! ' said the Abb^ 
de Latil in a loud voice. Monsieur did not dare to 
cross the threshold. His agitation increased. She 
raised her hands, and said : ' A boon, monseigneur, 
a boon ! Be God's, all God's ! ' He fell on his 
knees and exclaimed, ' God, I swear it I ' She said 
again: 'All God's! ' Her head sank on my shoulder. 
This last word was her latest sigh ; she had passed 
away. Monsieur raised his arms toward heaven 
and uttered a dreadful cry. The door was then 
closed." 



98 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULMiE 

From that hour the worldly man disappeared and 
gave place to the man of piety. The Prince never 
failed in the promise made at that deathbed and 
sealed with a vow. Thereafter, he who had been so 
fond of women led a life of the utmost propriety, 
and thought chiefly of his salvation. As Lamartine 
says : " The cause, the efficacy, and the enduring 
nature of the change in his life showed that he pos- 
sessed a power of loving and a strength of resolve 
which no one had ever suspected under his habitual 
weakness and inconstancy. It proved that had he 
been better advised by those who surrounded him, he 
might have displayed political heroism as well as the 
heroism of love and piety." Some indulgence should 
be granted to the memory of the brother of Louis 
XVI. and Louis XVIIL, for his faults were those 
of the head, and not those of the heart. Even when 
he was the victim of self-deception in regard to poli- 
tics, he thought he was acting for the best. The 
criticisms that he made do not prove jealousy, but 
genuine conviction and unswerving faith in the 
theory of throne and altar. His mistakes will be 
pardoned because of the goodness of his heart and 
his sincerity. 



X 



THE DUKES OF ANGOULEME AND OF BERRY 

THE King's two nephews, the Duke of Angouleme 
and the Duke of Berry, one born at Versailles 
on the 5th of August, 1775, and the other on the 
24th of January, 1778, were, respectively, thirty-eight 
and thirty-six years old at the advent of the Resto- 
ration. Unlike their father in personal appearance 
and disposition, they had neither his elegance, nor 
his affability, nor his charm. The Count of Artois 
looked the grand seigneur as much as his sons com- 
ported themselves like plebeians. At first sight no 
one would have said that they belonged to two of 
the most illustrious families in the world, — the 
houses of Savoy and Bourbon. Yet they had traits 
that were serious and worthy of their line, — recti- 
tude, honesty, and courage. They were not men of 
courts, but men of heart. 

The Duke of Angouleme was not at Paris during 
the first days of the Restoration. He did not arrive 
till the 27th of May, 1814, and came from the south 
of France, where he had been the first to raise the 
white flag. A brilliant reception was given to him. 
The Duchess of Angouleme, escorted by ihQ Duke of 

99 



100 THE DUCHESS OF ANGO^LEME 

Berry wearing the uniform of the chasseurs, and by 
a large staff composed of French marshals, lieuten- 
ant-generals, major-generals, and other high officers,, 
went as far as the Grand Montrouge to meet him. 
The national guard, both infantry and cavalry, sev- 
eral detachments of troops of the line, and gendarmes 
went to the barrier of the Maine. These troops were 
preceded far beyond the barrier by an immense num- 
ber of Parisians, on foot, on horses, and in carriages, 
which lined both sides of the road. The boulevards, 
the public squares, the quays which the Prince must 
pass, were equally crowded with a sympathetic multi- 
tude. When the carriages of the Duke and the 
Duchess met, husband and wife seemed delighted to 
see each other again. They alighted and conversed 
together for a few minutes. They then proceeded 
to the Tuileries, the Prince on horseback, and the 
Princess in her carriage. In the words of the Moni- 
teur: "It touched the people to see the auspicious 
change in the face of the Duchess, the happiness and 
satisfaction wrought by the whole scene. His High- 
ness responded with remarkable affability to the 
cheers which, in consequence, became still more 
enthusiastic." When the barrier was reached, the 
Prince received the congratulations of the prefect 
of the Seine. Then, preceded by the members of 
the municipal corps in state carriages, and accom- 
panied by the Duke of Berry and the entire staff, he 
traversed the new boulevards, the rue de Sdvres, and 
the rue du Bac, and arrived at the chateau of the 



THE DUKES OF ANGOULJ&ME AND BERBY 101 

Tuileries, through the great gate of the Palais-Royal. 
The Moniteur^ ever enthusiastic, adds : " All the 
homage and devotion that the inhabitants of the 
capital had rendered to the King and to the princes 
of his house when they came within the walls, were 
renewed with the same enthusiasm and the same 
unanimity during the entry of the Duke of Angou- 
leme. This Prince, who, in our southern provinces, 
had so often witnessed the enthusiasm inspired by 
his presence, could not but think that he was still 
surrounded by that same quality of Frenchmen who 
can express their feelings only by the liveliest sort of 
excitement. The speech and the animated accent of 
Bordeaux and Toulouse reappeared in Paris to honor 
and welcome him." 

At court the Duke of Angouleme was but a mod- 
erate success. He had neither the good qualities 
nor the faults that please courtiers. His household 
was made up of members of the nobility. Count de 
Damas-Crux was his first gentleman of the bedcham- 
ber ; the Duke of Guiche, his chief equerry ; and 
Baron de Damas, Count Melchoir de Polignac, and 
Count Louis de Saint-Priest were his gentlemen-in- 
waiting. But this was not the society he preferred. 
As Baron Louis de Viel-Castel says : " He had no 
predilection for courtiers, and more than once he 
even let them see that their society was not very 
agreeable to him. This aversion, strange in a man 
in his position, may have been due to his natural 
clumsiness ; he was ill at ease in refined and polished 



102 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

society, which, though it is lavish of respectful and I 
devoted homage to princes, requires from them con- 
sideration and respect in return. Whatever may 
have been the cause of such conduct, it might have 
resulted, and later on it did result, in making the 
Duke of Angouleme popular for some time, in that 
it brought him into closer relations with generals of 
the Empire and men of the new regime, who annoyed 
him less than the old courtiers because they more 
readily accommodated themselves to the inequalities 
of his disposition." 

Notwithstanding his natural vivacity, the Duke of 
Angouleme was an admirable husband. Full of 
respect for his wife, to whom he had been married 
since the 10th of June, 1799, and whose barrenness 
he lamented without even complaining of it, he was 
always faithful to her. The wedded pair, perfectly at 
one in thought and feeling, entertained for each other 
an affection based on the highest esteem. The Duke 
of Angouleme was a pious man without being "cleri- 
cal." As regards political matters, he was favorable 
to a just and wise liberalism. Sincerely devoted to 
Louis XYIII., with whom during the exile he had 
lived much more than with his father, he held abso- 
lute obedience to the King to be the first duty of a 
prince. 

The Duke of Berry did not lead so regular a life 
as his brother. He was extremely fond of pleasure. 
He had had mistresses in London. At Paris he was 
dissipated. His capricious and violent temperament 



THE DUKES OF ANGOULEME AND BERRY 103 

could not endure quietude. His conversation was 
more interesting than that of his brother. When he 
chose to take the trouble, he talked agreeably, and 
he was by no means devoid of a certain sort of wit. 
Naturalness and connectedness are shown in his cor- 
respondence. He had artistic tastes, was fond of 
music, and understood painting. He had a fund of 
loyalty, generosity, and kindliness, but the intemper- 
ance of his language, his rudeness, his vehemence, 
and his fits of rage made him many enemies. 

At great ceremonies, when he donned a white 
satin costume embroidered with gold, the Duke of 
Berry, with his big neck and his portly figure, looked 
awkward and constrained. But uniform did not 
become him badly, and he had a martial air. He had 
greatly distinguished himself in the army of Conde 
by his rash valor. Interested in military matters 
rather than in politics, he affected to prefer barracks 
to salons, and a trooper to a courtier. When he held 
a review he had a mania for imitating the rude 
behavior and the familiar language of the Emperor 
Napoleon. He retained his affection for the noble- 
men who had shared his exile. His first gentleman 
of the bedchamber was Count de la Ferronnays ; his 
chief equerry. Count de Nantouillet ; his commander 
of the horse. Chevalier de Segur ; his gentlemen-in- 
waiting, Count de Mesnard and Count de Clermont- 
Lodeve ; but he was still better pleased to be in the 
company of the young officers who had shone in the 
court of Napoleon. 



104 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

" The Duke of Angouleme," says Marshal Marmont, 
*' seemed lackmg m grace and intelligence. The 
Duke of Berry appeared to be greatly his superior. 
The latter possessed nobility, gaiety, and a liking for 
pleasure and the fine arts. The young general offi- 
cers who had been on the Emperor's staff ; the cour- 
tiers who had carried the court spirit into the army — 
a spirit a thousand times more dangerous and shock- 
ing on the field of war, where truth, frankness, and 
devotion should alone prevail, — -these military gen- 
tlemen, I say, who had already secured favors with- 
out sharing in dangers, thought that there was still 
good quarry to be got out of the new state of affairs. 
So they followed and flocked around the Duke of 
Berry, who was at first much flattered by their atten- 
tion. But it was not long before the Prince's habit- 
ual rudeness, and his mania for aping Napoleon in 
his blunders and defects, which nothing in the 
Prince could justify or excuse, together with the 
signs which shortly seemed to show how little solidity 
there was in the Restoration, chilled their ardor for 
the new master of their choice." 

Yet the princes had many followers, in spite of 
their imperfections. As the Duchess of Abrant^s 
observes : " The Duke of Berry was, they said, the 
worthy descendant of Henri IV. Poor Henri IV. 
was ever present to serve as a criterion. The distri- 
bution of qualities was made according to character. 
The Duke of Angouleme descended from Saint Louis 
because he was a godly man ; the Duke of Berry 



THE DUKES OF ANGOULEME AND BERRY 105 

descended from Henri IV. because he had worldly 
tastes; and the Count of Artois from Francis I. 
because twenty years previously he had been what 
was called a vert-gala7it.^'' 

As the health of Louis XYIII. and the duties 
which required his presence at the seat of govern- 
ment would not permit him to visit the different 
portions of France, it was thought needful to send 
the princes there. In July and August, the Duke 
of Angouleme went through the west, the Count of 
Artois through the east, and, in September and Octo- 
ber, the Duke of Berry went northward. Of the three 
princes, the Duke of Angouleme produced the most 
favorable impression. Sensible people were won by 
his moderation and the fact that he displayed no 
aristocratic prejudices. He showed himself prudent 
and conciliating everywhere. The ultra-royalists 
found him a little lukewarm. In his book, Vendee 
Militaire^ M. Cr^tineau-Joly says, on the road from 
Cholet to Montague, all that were left of the insur- 
rectionists joined in welcoming the Prince with 
enthusiasm. But these warlike agriculturists were 
told that the King's nephew did not wish to see 
them under arms. They piled their weapons at the 
roadside, and then stepped back five paces. Sur- 
rounded by squadrons of cavalry, the Duke of 
Angouleme passed these worthy royalists without 
his presence being indicated by anything save a 
cloud of dust. As they walked back to their cot- 
tages as sadly as if they were returning from a 



106 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



funeral, the villagers said to each other: "Poor 
Prince ! He has been forbidden to say that he loves 
and esteems us." 

On his part, the Duke of Berry wrote as follows to 
M. Louis de La Roche jaquelein on the 21st of May : 
" The love of the Vendeans for the King, which they 
have retained owing to you, gives me good reason to 
hope that the species of ferment that seems to exist 
in this province will not have any unpleasant conse- 
quences. You will give the brave and good inhabi- 
tants of Poitou to understand that zeal too ardent 
and ill-considered often occasions as much trouble as 
insubordination. The way in which they demand 
the repudiation of the civil authorities is unseemly 
and even seditious. These outcries against the pre- 
fects and the gendarmes have a revolutionary tone, 
and can be the result only of inconsiderate zeal, or 
rather the outcome of the intrigues of secret enemies 
of the King and the public good." 

If the Duke of Angouleme was unsatisfactory to 
the royalists of the west, the Duke of Berry did 
not produce a pleasant effect on the old Bonapartists 
of the north. It is said that at Lille, during a 
review, an officer stepped from the ranks and asked 
for the cross of Saint Louis. " What have you done 
to deserve it?" asked the Prince. "I have served 
for thirty years in the French army." " Thirty 
years of brigandage ! " exclaimed the Duke of 
Berry, turning his back on the officer. It is 
added that on the next day the Duke Avished to 



THE DUKES OF ANG0UL:EME AND BEBRY 107 

make amends for his imprudent speech, but it had 
gone the rounds and produced its effect. The sol- 
diers complained that the princes distributed the 
cross of the Legion of Honor during their tour so 
lavishly as to dishonor it. They indignantly re- 
peated to each other that when at a ball, at the 
prefecture of Lille, a woman who danced with the 
Duke of Berry asked for her husband that cross 
for which so many brave men had paid with their 
blood, the Prince, without further inquiry, gave 
himself the pleasure of bestowing it on the man. 

In spite of his irregularities, the Duke of Berry 
possessed noble qualities. His youthful escapades 
did not prevent him from preserving his respect for 
religion, and, although he was not pious like his 
father and brother, he remained true to the faith 
of his ancestors. He loved France sincerely and 
wished to see her great and glorious. He was 
regarded as the hope of the Bourbons, and people 
looked forward with impatience to the time when 
he should marry and perpetuate his line. His was 
an energetic and intrepid nature, and the wretch 
Louvel well knew, when he smote the Duke, that 
his knife was hewing down the most vigorous branch 
of the royal tree. All the faults of the Duke of 
Berry were expiated by his sublime death. No hero, 
no Christian, could* have more courage when, in 
presence of the last agony, he gathered all the 
strength that was left him to pardon his murderer, 
and exclaim : " Have mercy, have mercy on the man ! " 



XI 



MADAME 



AT the outset of the Restoration, the royal fam- 
ily, properly speaking, was composed of only 
five persons, four of whom were men, — the King ; the 
Count of Artois; his elder son, the Duke of Angou- 
leme ; andhis younger son, the Duke of Berry. There 
was but one woman, the Duchess of Angouleme (the 
members of the Orleans and Cond^ families bore the 
title of princes and princesses of the blood, but were 
not members of the royal family). Doubly niece of 
the King, — by blood as the daughter of Louis XVL, 
and by alliance as the wife of the Duke of Angou- 
leme, — the Duchess was called Madame during the 
reign of Louis XVIIL, while, when Charles X. was 
King, she was styled Madame la Dauphine, and the 
abbreviation Madame served to designate the Duch- 
ess of Berry. 

Born at Versailles on the 19th of December, 1778, 
the Duchess of Angouleme was thirty-five years old 
at the commencement of the Restoration. In a pre- 
ceding study we have endeavored accurately to de- 
pict her escape from the Temple after more than 
three years of captivity, on the 19th of December, 
108 



MADAME 109 



1795, the very day on which she became seventeen 
years old. She was then a charming young girl of 
truly ideal beauty. Since then she had greatly 
changed. Her voice had grown somewhat coarse, 
and her face somewhat grave. Her features had 
become accentuated. The valiant woman of the 
Scriptures had succeeded to the type of the tender 
and timid maiden. 

The freshness of youth having departed, Louis 
XVI.'s daughter lost charm, but majesty still was 
hers. Her presence at Paris produced at once u.ni- 
versal sympathy and veneration. In every class 
of society, from the greatest personage to the hum- 
blest laborer, all recognized the features of the 
orphan of the Temple. It may be said of this elect 
lady that, even while living, she became legend- 
ary. In looking upon her, every one, no matter 
what might be his party, was touched. The only 
fear was that her austerity might prevent her from 
attending fetes and appearing at theatres ; and there- 
fore the public was delighted when it learned that 
she would be present with the King and princes 
when gala pieces were played at the royal theatres. 

" The infirmities of Louis XVIIL," says Marshal 
Marmont, "made it difficult for him to move. Oh 
this account a large box, easy of access, and in 
which he could be comfortable, was arranged for 
him at every place of entertainment. This contriv- 
ance and the brilliancy of the preparations for his 
appearance made veritable fetes of the performances. 



110 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

The attendance was very large. The King's box 
was placed at the centre of the first tier, was care- 
fully ornamented, and was large enough to accom- 
modate the whole royal family. The King, Madame 
the Duchess of Angouleme, and the princes com- 
monly came in a single coach in which there was 
ample room for five persons." 

The performance given at the Opera on the 17th 
of May, 1814, was, so to speak, the apotheosis of the 
daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. The 
play was (Edipe a Colone in which the principal 
female character is Antigone. On seeing Ducis 
again, the King quoted the following four lines from 
the tragic poet : — 

" Yes, thou through every coming age shalt prove 
The perfect symbol of true filial love ; 
Long as unhappy fathers shall remain, 
Thy name shall solace them in every pain." 

And the King added : " You can certainly divine 
who is the Antigone to whom I have often quoted 
those verses. They are worthy of her ; I can make 
no finer encomium upon her." " The New Antig- 
one " came to be the sobriquet of Louis XVIII.'s 
niece, and the drama played at the Opera gave rise 
to many allusions to the devotion and filial affection 
of the Princess. 

All the boxes were secured three weeks in ad- 
vance. Only tickets for the parterre and gallery 
were to be had, and tickets and other cards giving 



MADAME 111 



admission only to the. corridors were sold for fabu- 
lous prices at the door. At five o'clock a great 
multitude thronged to the theatre, although it was 
known that only a few seats could be bought. 
Hardly a twentieth part of the crowd could gain 
admittance. The Duchess of Abrantes, who was 
present at this representation, afterward said : " The 
hall itself was an extraordinary spectacle : the 
women wore no diamonds and were all dressed in 
white. Their only ornaments were plumes, sprigs 
of lily, and bunches and garlands of white lilac. 
All the bouquets were white ; the hall was enchant- 
ing, adorned as it was with flowers and women. 
There was about it an elegance for which I could 
not at first account, and which I afterwards ex- 
plained by that gracious hue, white, and the perfume 
of the budding year which penetrated everywhere." 
Just as the curtain rose, the King, followed by his 
family, appeared in his box, and was greeted with 
acclamations and a flourish of trumpets. The play 
abounded with allusions, for which the public waited 
impatiently, and which they seized upon with enthu- 
siasm. This was the case, for example, with these 

lines: — 

"Thou august victim of mischance and woe, 
End the regrets within thy heart that burn, 
The soul that naught but innocence doth know 

To brave the face of Fortune still should learn. 
Possess thy soul in peace, the while we prove 

By that most jealous care we'll show for thee 
That thou alone shalt be our liege and love, — 
Our zealous care, that of Antigone." 



112 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

At the name of Antigone, the King, somewhat 
anticipating the emotion of the spectators, and turn- 
ing to his niece, who sat beside him, for a long time 
mingled his plaudits with those of the public. Cries 
of " Long live the King ! Long live Madame the 
Duchess of Angouleme I " resounded through the 
hall. The beautiful air which begins thus : — 

" On me she lavished her tenderness and care " 

was tumultuously encored. 

During the entr'acte the orchestra played the tune 
"Vive Henri IV.!" which was sung in chorus by the 
whole assembly. The spectacle ended with a new 
ballet by Gardel, in which the two fashionable 
dancers, Mademoiselle Bigottini and Mademoiselle 
Clotilde, appeared, always to the air of " Vive Henri 
IV. I " The re-birth of the lily, and the return of 
peace, were represented in a clever allegory, in which 
the favorite dances of the various nations of Europe 
were introduced. 

" This representation," said the Duchess of Abran- 
tes, " was more serviceable than might have been 
expected. It had been reported that Madame would 
not attend the theatre, and the announcement of 
such a rupture with the fashionable world had 
done her much harm. Madame the Duchess of 
Angouleme was gracious, though melancholy, on 
that day, and this melancholy impressed on one 
who sacrificed on the altar of the living God every 
resentment and every remembrance of affront, was 



MADAME 11 



9 



a sentiment at least permissible in a woman who 
mourned for those whom she had lost by a death 
more frightful than death itself." 

In spite of the ovations she received, the daughter 
of Louis XVI. was profoundly sad at heart, and neither 
flatteries nor so-called pleasures could dispel her grief. 
She attended fetes and spectacles only from a sense 
of duty. Her return to the Tuileries, far from 
assuaging her sorrows, had brought them more 
vividly before her. Upon entering this chateau, 
the Count of Artois and Louis XVIII. were in a 
triumphant mood, and filled with thoughts of gran- 
deur and satisfied ambition. Intoxicated with hap- 
piness, the Count of Artois went into ecstasies 
over the luxuriousness of the palace, adorned and 
embellished by Napoleon. On seeing the walls of 
which he had so often thought during the long hours 
of his exile, the King congratulated himself upon 
the success of his enterprises. On the contrary, the 
daughter of the martyred King and Queen seemed to 
herself to be surrounded by mournful phantoms and 
scenes. When she looked upon the court of the 
Carrousel, she dreamed of the 10th of August and 
the massacre of the Swiss. On the balcony of the 
Hall of Marshals overlooking the garden she dteaded 
to look before her, for in the distance appeared the 
square of the crime, that unhappy square which, 
all through the Restoration, she refused to cross. 
When she paced the large apartments, she passed 
the spot where pikemen placed the red cap on the 



114 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

heads of the King and the Dauphin. The chambers 
of her father, her mother, and her brother were to 
her so many sanctuaries which she hardly dared to 
enter. She lodged in the Pavilion of Flora, where 
her aunt, Madame Elisabeth, resided from the 6th 
of October, 1789, to the 10th of August, 1792. 
Thoughts of this saint constantly occupied her mind. 
In reading the correspondence of Madame Elisabeth, 
— -those really admirable letters in which much reli- 
gion blends with so much resolution, — one perceives 
that the tastes, the ideas, the sentiments, and the 
principles of the Duchess of Angouleme were on 
every subject entirely the same as those of her aunt. 
Never was pupil better fashioned in the image of her 
instructress. The lessons that the sister of Louis 
XVI. had given to the young girl in the dungeon of 
the Temple were never forgotten by the woman at 
the Tuileries. Upon the occurrence of any political 
event, the Duchess of Angouleme said to herself : 
How would this be looked upon by my aunt Elisa- 
beth? And at once a secret voice answered the 
question thus put. 

It is easily understood that a woman habituated 
to thoughts so grave and meditations so austere 
wouM have no inclination for the distractions, triv- 
ialities, meannesses and intrigues of the court. 
The proceedings of the government, besides, dis- 
pleased her in many respects. Doubtless she did 
not deem a reconstitution of the old regime possi- 
ble. Her husband, with whom she lived in per- 



MADAME 115 



feet eommunity of ideas, was looked upon almost 
as a liberal. He encouraged neither the Utopian 
opinions of the ultra-Catholics nor the exaggerated 
zeal of the ultra-royalists. Like him, she held the 
red and the white Terror in equal aversion. She did 
full justice to the heroic qualities of the lieutenants 
of Napoleon, and her courtesy to them was never 
less than perfect. But she had a horror of treason, 
apostasy, recantation, and baseness. She did not 
feel at home at the Tuileries, since she saw about 
the King men who, in her opinion, were out of 
place there. For example, she could not admit 
that the man who had been Bonaparte's Minister 
of Foreign Affairs when the Duke of Enghien was 
assassinated, and who had given a ball to the diplo- 
matic corps three days after the murder, ought to be 
Louis XVIII.'s Minister of Foreign Affairs. It 
pained her to see that the Restoration, so long 
and ardently desired by the royalists, was chiefly 
beneficial to men who were once enemies of the 
throne and altar. 

The talk at court seemed to her objectless, super- 
ficial, and little in keeping with the unhappy state 
of affairs. She could have wished for a graver, 
a more moral, and a more religious society. Preach- 
ing by example, she afforded only edification by 
her piety as well as by her charity, and she liked no- 
body whose morals were not absolutely irreproachable. 
The Bishop of Nancy was her first almoner: his 
assistants were the Abb^ Grimaldi and the Abb^ de 



116 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

Vichy; her chaplam was the Abbe Cacqueray; her 
lady-in-waiting, the Duchess of S^rent; her .lady- 
in-waiting in reversion, the Countess of Damas ; and 
her tiring-woman, the Countess of Choisy. As ladies- 
in-attendance, she had the Countess of B^arn, the 
Countess of Gontaut-Biron, Marchioness de Saint- 
Maure, Viscountess de Vaudreuil, the Countess of 
Goyon, and Marchioness de Rouge. Her gentleman- 
in-waiting was Viscount de Montmorency ; her chief 
equerry. Viscount d'Agoult; and her commander 
of the horse. Count de Lastours. She confided in 
the few persons whom she honored with her special 
esteem, but the high-flown and almost idolatrous 
flattery of which too zealous courtiers sought to 
make her the object seemed intolerable to her. She 
understood the human heart thoroughly and recog- 
nized at once what was false and selfish in the 
protestations of devotion that were lavished upon 
her. Past apostasies gave her a presentiment of 
those which were to come. What made her little 
pleasing to the courtiers was that, notwithstanding 
her civility, they saw perfectly well that she was 
not the dupe of their flattery. Deeply sincere and 
always simple-hearted, she despised factitious and 
theatrical emotions. As M. Louis de Viel-Castel 
remarks : " She had passed through realities too 
terrible to allow her to acquire a taste for those 
romantic encomiums which her misfortunes inspired 
in the poets and orators of her time." 

In character as in physique she resembled her 



MADAME 117 



father much more than her mother. She had 
neither the n-resistible magnetism nor the surpass- 
ing elegance of Marie Antoinette. She felt a strong 
antipathy against a fashionable life and a frivolous 
society like that of the Petit-Trianon. Her tastes 
were those of a nun rather than a princess. M. 
de Vaulabelle said of her : " Her character was 
masculine and firm, and her courage, submitted to the 
harshest trials, was always equal to the situation. 
A devoted relative, a. steadfast and trusty friend, 
and endowed with all the virtues that go to make 
up an honored wife, she possessed much benevolence 
and goodness of heart, whatever has been said to 
the contrary. Unfortunately, her awkward bearing 
and her rough and heavy voice rendered all her 
movements and her slightest expressions disagree- 
able ; every word she uttered gave a galling tone 
of severity to her voice. It was only the habitual 
sombreness which a long life of sorrow had impressed 
on her face that gave it, in the eyes of the multi- 
tude, an expression of haughtiness and disdain." 
Frivolous people would have liked to see her 
joyous, gay, and smiling when the very utmost 
that she could do was to repress the tears that 
rose to her eyes and keep down the sobs that op- 
pressed her breast. While everybody about her 
forgot, the daughter of Louis XVI. remembered. 
Grave, self-collected, and austere, she watched over 
the memories hidden in the deepest recesses of her 
heart. To lay her afflictions before the eyes of 



118 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOVL:tME 

courtiers seemed to her a profanation. To her, 
silence was a species of modesty. The gushings 
and trickeries of sentiment were repugnant to her. 
Many persons would have liked to hear her tell 
the story of the days she had passed in the Temple 
as an actress declaims her part. She never grati- 
fied their wish. To God alone she told her sorrows. 
One of her contemporaries, M. Fievee exclaimed : 
"Can she regard the judgment of men or attach 
the least value to it? Has not this intrepid soul 
been led to look on God alone as its judge? It is 
said she is not gay, is not confident, has forgotten 
nothing ; upon returning from exile her manners 
recall the country where she found the hospitality 
which was refused her by her own. Ah! if she 
were light-minded, if she were imprudent, if in her 
eyes there were no distinction between crime and 
virtue, between treachery and fidelity ; if she were 
not religious ; if her experiences had not profoundly 
affected her ; if, before she knew you, she had, fol- 
lowing a natural bent, sacrificed to the frivolities 
that to you seem so important, you would find 
her more worthy of your love and respect, and 
would rely upon her more, simply because her whole 
being would be contrary to the moral laws of Provi- 
dence." 

Although the Duchess of Angouleme was but 
little pleasing to the courtiers, she made a strong 
impression on the masses whenever she appeared 
in public. On the 12th of June, 1814, which was 



IIADAME 119 



the day of Corpus Christi, she attracted universal 
attention when she appeared on the balcony of the Hall 
of the Marshals. On that day, in all the parishes of 
the capital, great crowds of the faithful joined the 
priests in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. 
The inhabitants adorned the fronts of their houses 
with tapestries, hangings, and decorations in which 
religious emblems were intermingled with those of 
monarchy; for the partisans of the throne and altar 
did not sunder God and king. National guards, 
troops of the line, and Paris guards, preceded 
and closed the procession. Altars glittering with 
gold and covered with flowers stood at various 
places. While the processions were entering the 
churches, an immense mass of people was at the 
chateau of the Tuileries, awaiting in the garden 
the moment when the King and his family should 
come from Mass and appear on the balcony. When 
the people caught sight of the Duchess of Angou- 
leme, they were enthusiastic. They said to them- 
selves : " This is a fete after her own heart." 

In June, the Princess was forced by the state of 
her health to take the waters at Vichy, and her jour- 
ney to that place was a continuous ovation. We 
quote from the Moniteur passages which show the 
feeling of the day very well. 

"Vichy, June 29. — Madame, the Duchess of An- 
gouleme, has arrived and been warmly welcomed by 
the local authorities and the multitude that gathered 
to see her pass by. She received everybody with 



120 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

infinite grace and kindliness and drew all hearts to 
her. She is very careful to hurt no one's feelings." 

" July 15. — The Duchess of Angouleme continues 
to make salutary use of the waters of this place. 
Her health has singularly improved. Her Royal 
Highness walks out frequently and makes excursions 
into the neighboring rural districts, during which her 
ready charity and great beneficence secure for her 
the acknowledgment of the local authorities and the 
blessings of the unfortunate." 

"July 19. — It is hoped that the waters of Vichy 
will respond to the prayers of all the French people, 
who implore Heaven for the complete restoration of 
their tutelary angel. Since the arrival of Her Royal 
Highness, Vichy has assumed the appearance of a 
populous city. Every day witnesses the arrival of 
numerous deputations, not only from the department 
of Allier, but from all departments. From noon till 
one o'clock, which is the hour at which Madame 
receives the respects that they are so anxious to pay 
her, she frequently sees fifty or sixty persons who 
lay at her feet the vows and the homage of the cities 
and communes which they represent. Sometimes 
the spokesmen are overcome by emotion. One of 
them, in despair of being able to say a word, fell 
sobbing at the Princess's feet and begged pardon for 
being unable to deliver his address. Bidding him 
rise, Madame said in a voice that showed how greatly 
she was touched: 'Why do you regret that you 
cannot speak to me ? What better could you say ? ' 



MADAME 121 



Every word of Madame's bears the impress of pene- 
trating insight and of that close perception of things 
which causes them to appear in their true light." 

On the 19th of July, the guard of honor from 
Moulins came to Vichy, and thereafter it constantly 
accompanied Madame to divine service and when she 
went out for an airing. Among the deputations, that 
from the inhabitants of the mountains, the members 
of which were dressed entirely in white, attracted 
special attention. " They," adds the Moniteur, " ad- 
dressed Madame with so true and touching a feeling 
that they left the presence bathed in tears and caus- 
ing everybody to share their emotion. As they with- 
drew they pressed to their hearts the decoration of 
the fleur-de-lis which Her Royal Highness had kindly 
given them." 

Let us read further the account sent by the corre- 
spondent of the Moniteur : — 

" Vichy, August 3, 1814. — Madame, the Duchess 
of Angouleme, left this morning, after having filled 
with joy and happiness all who have seen and had 
access to her. Wherever she goes, she excites the 
same feelings. In her the angel of the reconciliation 
of past and present wins admiration. Her journey is 
a triumphal progress." 

The Princess goes from Vichy to Lyons. There is 
a fete champetre in even the rural districts through 
which she passes. She seems to take her way only 
over hills of verdure and a carpet of flowers. Lyons 
awaits her with impatience. The city wishes to give 



122 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

lier a fete ; commerce claims tlie same honor ; the 
national guard aspires to take the lead in all; the 
citizens of the Bellecour quarter demand the prefer- 
ence. In zeal and enthusiasm there is common emu- 
lation. On Saturday, the 6th of August, the daugh- 
ter of Louis XVI. enters the walls of Lyons. Tri- 
umphal arches have been erected along her way. A 
troop of young girls, dressed all in white, presents 
her with flowers. Marshal Augereau, Duke of Cas- 
tiglione, — Augereau, once an ardent republican, 
Augereau, the man of the 18th Fructidor, — :has gone 
past Ecully to meet her. At the faubourg of Vaise, 
at the Pyramid, another triumphal arch appears. In 
a semicircle is an amphitheatre adorned with ladies 
elegantly dressed. The streets, the bridges, the pub- 
lic squares, the quays along which the Princess is to 
pass, have been decorated with white draperies and 
festoons of grasses. She advances slowly in an open 
carriage drawn by six white horses, and salutes the 
crowd affably and with emotion. On the Pont de 
Change she sees an Ionic temple bearing this inscrip- 
tion : " Love to Madame." As she passes the tem- 
ple, the doors are flung open and she sees the flame 
on the tripods. The porters of the temple, dressed 
as at the famous siege of Lyons, pay their respects to 
the Princess. At nine o'clock in the evening, there 
are fine fireworks on the Pont du Bois, before the 
Archbishop's palace. Immediately afterwards the 
city is illuminated as if by magic. 

On the 7th of August, the Princess attends solemn 



MADAME 123 



Mass in the primatical church of Saint- Jean. On 
the same day, at the desire of the city, she drives 
along the Sa6ne as far as the isle Barbe. She goes 
in a coach to the harbor of Serin, passing the square 
Louis-le-Grand. In the middle of this square an 
open octagonal temple, consecrated to the Bourbon 
family, has been constructed on the spot where the 
statue of Louis XIV. once stood. Medallions of 
Saint Louis, Henri IV., Louis XIII., Louis XIV., 
Louis XV., Louis XVI., Louis XVIL, and Louis 
XVIII. adorned the various sides of the temple. In 
the centre of this sanctuary of royalty appears an 
altar covered witji an offering of flowers. At the 
Hotel de Ville, on the great balcony of the side 
overlooking the square des Terreaux, is a design 
representing the city of Lyons, in the form of a 
woman whose head is adorned with a mural crown, 
and who holds in her hands a portrait of Louis 
XVIIL These lines from Delille's poem called 
Pitie are on the pedestal : — 

" In exile drear, and in adversity, 
Still wast thou here to my fidelity." 

When the harbor of Serin is reached, the Duchess 
of Angouleme enters a boat adorned with the city 
arms, and accompanied by two other boats beauti- 
fully decorated, and in which are the authorities and 
the persons invited to take part in the procession. 
A vessel with an orchestra on board follows the 
flotilla. The Sa6ne is hidden in the great number 



124 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

of gondolas. The weather is magnificent. When 
they land at the isle Barbe, the mayor, in his oration, 
speaks of four epochs memorable on the island: it 
was the refuge of early Christians in the days of 
persecution; there Charlemagne established the first 
library ; Pius VII. visited the place ; and now the 
daughter of the martyred King honored it with her 
presence. 

When they re-embark they hear the cry : " Fare- 
well, Madame ! '^ The sun no longer shines on the 
hilltops. In the evening, the Princess goes to the 
Grand Theatre of Lyons, where she sees a play com- 
posed for the occasion and entitled Fete da Bon- 
lieur. The public seize with transport upon the 
allusions in it. All the houses are illuminated as 
on the foregoing evening. 

On Monday, the 8th of August, Madame was at 
the plain of Brotteaux to see a review of the 
horse and foot national guards, the 13th dragoons 
and the 24th of the line. At the entrance to 
the bridge on the city side was a verdure-clad 
triumphal arch bearing warlike emblems. At the 
summit was this inscription : " The Road to the 
Field of Honor." A shield surrounded with mili- 
tary trophies bore this device : " Our Blood has 
flowed for the King." On another shield was this 
second device : " The Siege sustained for sixty-three 
days in the year 1793." The Princess drove through 
the lines in the midst of vivas; then the troops 
defiled before her. After the review Marshal 



MADAME 125 



Augereau invited her to breakfast. " It is not on 
the fine appearance of the troops that I wish to 
congratulate you," said she to the marshal. " It is on 
the spirit that animates them. I shall tell it all to 
the King, but I fear he will be jealous of the pleasure 
I have had." 

Upon her return, the Duchess of Angouleme found 
the streets and quays ornamented with white draper- 
ies and garlands of flowers. In the evening she 
attended the fete of Commerce and Arts which was 
given in her honor at the palace of Saint-Pierre. 
After the concert, she went to see the exhibition of 
silk stuffs that had been mounted for her in one of 
the rooms of this palace. The w^orkmen wrought 
under her eyes a brocaded tissue upon which, when 
it was shown, she recognized her own features most 
faithfully reproduced. Afterwards she witnessed the 
ball that followed the concert, and, before withdraw- 
ing, she descended to the garden, where she moved 
about amid general applause. People had come to 
Lyons for twenty leagues about, to join in the mag- 
nificent rejoicings. Despite her experience of human 
vicissitudes, the orphan of the Temple never sus- 
pected that, a few months subsequently, she would 
be forced to begin once more her life of exile. On 
the 13th of August she set out for Paris without 
having for an instant been intoxicated by the odor of 
the incense which during the whole of her trip had 
been burned before her. 

At the time when the Duchess of Angouleme was 



126 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

taking the waters at Vicliy, another princess, whose 
name was on every lip a few weeks before, and about 
whom no one was concerned, was taking the waters 
of the Aix-en-Savoie. It was said in the Journal des 
Debats : " Aix-les-Bains, July 18 (Mont Blanc). — 
The concourse of strangers at the waters of the Aix 
is very considerable. The Archduchess Marie Louise 
arrived yesterday, the 17th. Since many apartments 
had been reserved for Her Highness, it was supposed 
that she would have a large following. For a long 
time we have had no weather so fine and suitable for 
bathing." Savoy was as yet a part of France, and 
the little town of Aix-les-Bains was comprised in the 
French department of Mont Blanc, whose chief city 
was Chambdry. Four months previously, Marie 
Louise had been its ruler. She went there now 
merely as a private person, save that her domestics 
still wore the imperial livery. To understand the 
fact that she was authorized to live in this way under 
the reign of the Bourbons and in her old Empire, it 
must be considered how little she was devoted to her 
husband. She was, besides, entirely forgotten. It 
was to the Duchess of Angouleme that the general 
attention of France was then directed. 

Beyond question there was some exaggeration in the 
encomiums which at that time were lavished in profu- 
sion on the daughter of Louis XVI. Those dithyrambs 
showed marks of the declamatory tone which was as 
fashionable under the Restoration as it had been 
under the Empire. But the virtuous Princess really 



MADAIfE 127 



deserved distinguished praise, for in the highest 
degree she was precisely what Marie Louise was no 
longer, — a woman devoted to duty. Louis XVIIL 
often sought the advice of his niece. Napoleon said 
of her, that she was the only man in her family. In 
truth, she possessed great elevation of mind, great 
generosity of heart, and a most courageous char- 
acter. 

Certainly the Duchess of Angouleme may have 
deceived herself, but the policy which she would 
have caused to prevail would under all circumstances 
have been the policy of virtue and honor. She had 
the energy of her grandmother, Maria Theresa, that 
powerful-minded woman to whom the Hungarians 
cried out : Moriamur pro rege nostro. Taught in the 
school of adversity, she understood better than any- 
body else how to guard herself against the snares of 
flattery. In the darkest of their days, Louis XVIIL 
and the Count of Artois were always surrounded by 
courtiers. Even in exile they lived the life of courts, 
in palaces with chamberlains, favorites, and office- 
seekers. The Duchess of Angouleme, on the other 
hand, having known prison life, and been submitted 
to the rigor and loneliness of prison rule, had learned 
how very hard are adversity and captivity. No 
woman of the people had been more harshly treated, 
or had suffered more cruelly. That experience gave 
her her power. 

In studying the virile character of this woman, 
one is sometimes forced to rcOTct, on her account, 



128 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULp.ME 

that France should have been governed according 
to the Salic law. Perhaps the orphan of the Tem- 
ple wonld have made a better sovereign than 
either of her uncles. It is said that she strongly 
disliked the defects of the Restoration, and was 
opposed to the ordinances that caused the downfall 
of Charles X. However that may be, the grand- 
daughter of Maria Theresa possessed qualities that 
fitted her to be a ruler. Her conduct at Bordeaux 
during the Hundred Days showed her presence of 
mind and the vigor of her character. She was a 
bold horsewoman, and could have reviewed troops 
better than Louis XVIII. There was not a single 
French soldier who would not have respected a sov- 
ereign possessing the virtues and the decision of 
character that marked the daughter of Louis XVI. 
There was no necessity that she, who already bore 
the crown of sorrow and misfortune, should be 
crowned at the cathedral at Rheims. If, instead of 
being a princess without influence, she had been the 
real queen of France, perhaps Napoleon would have 
hesitated to return from the island of Elba. 



XII 



THE ORLEANS FAMILY 



THE Duke of Orleans had not yet come to Paris 
when Louis XVIII. made his triumphal entry. 
Instead of following the example of the Count of 
Artois and the Duke of Angouleme, who returned to 
France before the abdication of the Emperor, he 
remained at Palermo with his family under the 
protection of his father-in-law, King Ferdinand IV., 
awaiting events. On the 23d of April, 1814, the 
news of the Restoration reached Sicily by the 
English vessel Ahouhir. The Duke of Orleans, 
abruptly entering his wife's room, exclaimed : " Bon- 
aparte's day is over, Louis XVIII. is re-established 
on the throne, and I am about to set out in an 
English vessel that has been sent to carry me back 
to France." Husband and wife threw themselves 
into each other's arms. The Duke then went to 
the Colli palace, where his father-in-law, the King 
of the Two Sicilies, could not restrain himself for 
joy. " Faccia in terra, per ringraziare Dio ! " cried 
the chief of the house of the Neapolitan Bourbons, 
prostrating himself to render thanks to God. 

129 



130 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Nevertheless, the Duke of Orleans was, perhaps, 
not certain as to the reception that Louis XVIII. 
might give him. He desired, however, personally 
to see how the land lay and to go to Paris without 
his family, intending to return to Palermo and 
fetch them, should he be satisfied with the treat- 
ment he received from Louis XVIII. On the 1st 
of May, 1814, which was the day of the feast of 
his patron. Saint Philip, he embarked at the port 
of Palermo on the Aboukir, and his Duchess, 
. who was a very pious woman, congratulated her- 
self upon the date of her husband's departure, 
which seemed to her to be a happy presage for the 
voyage. 

The Duke of Orleans reached Paris on the even- 
ing of the 17th of May. Instead of taking immedi- 
ate possession of the Palais Royal, his ancestral 
home, he went quietly to the hotel Grange Bate- 
liere. His first visit was to the King. On the 
29th of May, the day on which the Empress Jose- 
phine died at Malmaison, the Duke went to the 
Tuileri"es, where the King, with his own hands, be- 
stowed on him the decoration of Saint Louis. The 
Journal des Debats gives the following account of 
the ceremony of investiture : " The King stood with 
drawn sword in his hand, while the Duke knelt 
before His Majesty. The King gave him the acco- 
lade in the customary forms of chivalry. When 
His Majesty raised the Duke in order to embrace 
him. His Highness bowed and respectfully kissed 
His Majesty's hand." 



THE ORLEANS FAMILY 131 

The Duchess of Angouleme was well disposed 
toward a prince whose wife, a niece of Marie Antoi- 
nette, was her cousin-german. On the 1st of June, 
she visited the beautiful gardens of the Duke of 
Orleans at Monceaux. 

The Duke, perfectly satisfied in regard to the 
amicable intentions of the King, installed himself 
at the Palais Royal. He at once became popular. 
The Debats of date June 7, 1814, contains the fol- 
lowing : '' Monseigneur, the Duke of Orleans, first 
prince of the blood, has occupied the Palais Royal 
for several days. Yesterday, while leaving the pal- 
ace at noon, he was greeted with applause by a 
large number of people who were waiting for him 
at the foot of the grand staircase. His Most Serene 
Highness appeared gratified with this reception and 
saluted the public." 

The Duke left Paris on the 2d of July and re- 
turned to Palermo to fetch his wife and his three 
children, who had all been born in that city, — 
the Duke of Chartres, on the 3d of September,- 1810 ; 
the Princess Louise (who became Queen of the 
Belgians), on the 3d of April, 1812 ; and the Prin- 
cess Marie (the future Princess of Wurtemburg), 
on the 12th of April, 1813. He embarked on the 
French man-of-war, the Ville de Marseille, which 
bore the flag of Rear-Admiral L'Hermite, and en- 
tered the roadstead of Palermo on the 14th of July. 
The population gave him a hearty reception from 
the shore. On the 27th of the same month, he set 



132 THE DUCBESS OF ANGOULEME 

out for France with his family on the Ville de 
Marseille and set foot on French soil on the 18th 
of August, after a few day of quarantine. His 
wife, then pregnant with the child who became the 
Duke of Nemours, learned, during the voyage, of 
the death of her mother. Queen Marie Caroline, at 
Vienna. The Duke had with him also his sister, 
born on the 23d of August, 1777, who was unmar- 
ried, and was known as Madame Adelaide. The 
Prince was everywhere received with great honor. 
The Debats of the 10th of September, 1814, says: — 

" Lyons, Septemper 5. — Yesterday, at two o'clock 
in the afternoon, the Duke of Orleans, his wife, 
the Princess of Sicily, and Mademoiselle d' Orleans 
entered Lyons amid manifestations of public delight. 
At two o'clock to-day the Prince held a review in 
the plain of Brotteaux." 

" Paris, September 9. — The Duke of Orleans 
reached Paris at eleven o'clock. His first act was 
to render his respectful compliments to his mother, 
the Dowager Princess. His Highness preceded his 
wife and children to see if all was ready to receive 
them at his palace. He returns for them to-morrow." 

On the 22d of September the Duke came back to 
Paris with his family. M. Trognan, the biographer 
of Queen Amelie, says of the Princess : " She 
reached the Palais Royal, greatly moved to find 
herself at Paris once more, offering to God the tears 
that incessantly rose to her eyes and at the same 
time giving Him thanks for having brought her long 



THE OBLEANS FAMILY 133 

voyage to an end so much desired. Moreover, she 
was received only with joy and confidence in the 
world she entered. People were still in the first 
emotions that came from peace succeeding long wars, 
and the morn of liberty following the greatest des- 
potism. Happy in existing, the government of the 
Restoration had the appearance of walking forward 
without looking behind. Old French society, find- 
ing itself again on its feet at the Tuileries, as also in 
the mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, did not 
dream of the perils its own imprudence was prepar- 
ing for it. The mourning which the Duchess of 
Orleans wore in her heart as well as in her gar- 
ments, and the demands of a pregnancy the end of 
which was at hand, alone prevented her from min- 
gling from that time with what was going on at 
court, and in Parisian life." 

Marie Amelie was born on the 26th of April, 1T82, 
and was, at this time, thirty-two years old. She was 
the daughter of Ferdinand IV., King of the Two 
Sicilies, and Queen Marie Caroline, Archduchess of 
Austria, and sister of the Queen of France, Marie 
Antoinette. On the 25th of November, 1809, she 
married the Duke of Orleans, then exiled at Palermo, 
the marriage being a love match. An irreproachable 
and devoted mother, she bore a great reputation for 
virtue and piety. The Duchess of Angouleme, who 
liked only persons whose morals were pure, gave her 
pious cousin a specially friendly welcome. She was 
god-mother to the Duke of Nemours, who was born 



134 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

at Paris on the 5th of October, 1814. The Journal 
des Debats contains the following account of the 
baptism : — 

"Paris, October 26, 1814. — The King and Ma- 
dame the Duchess of Angouleme to-day held at the 
baptismal font in the chapel of the Tuileries, the Duke 
of Nemours, second son of Monseigneur the Duke 
of Orleans. The ceremony was performed by Mon- 
seigneur the Archbishop of Rheims, Grand Almoner 
of France, assisted by M. the Cure of the parish of 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. Madame the Duchess 
Dowager of Orleans, Monseigneur the Duke of 
Orleans, and the principal personages of the court 
were present. The Count of Blacas drew up the 
civil certificate." 

The Duchess Dowager of Orleans had, like her 
daughter-in-law, a great reputation for piety. Born 
on the 23d of March, 1753, Louise-Marie-Adelaide 
de Bourbon, daughter of the virtuous Duke of 
Penthi^vre, sister of the unfortunate Princess de 
Lamballe, and widow of the Duke of Orleans 
(Philippe Egalite), had borne a long series of 
catastrophies with great fortitude. She was mar- 
ried at the age of sixteen and appeared to great advan- 
tage at the court of Louis XVI., which she left only 
when her husband became embroiled with the King 
and the princes. She remained in France during 
the most perilous epoch of the Revolution and was 
imprisoned at Paris in 1793. Having lived till the 
9th Thermidor without anybody caring what became 



THE ORLEANS FAMILY 135 

of her, she was placed in a private asylum, where she 
remained till the 12th of September, 1797. Then she 
was deported to Spain and did not return to Paris 
till the 7th of August, 1814. Her residence was in 
the rue Tournon, at the Mvernais mansion. In spite 
of the recollections attached to the memory of her 
husband she met with an excellent reception at court, 
and passed a life of tranquillity, devoted to religion 
and good works. 

Her son, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who 
was born on the 6th of October, 1773, had already 
undergone many vicissitudes of fortune. In his early 
youth, in 1789, he had been led into the Revolution 
through the example and by the authority of his 
father, whose illusions he shared, and he even took 
a not inglorious part in the first battles of repub- 
licans in arms against foreign invasion. Subse- 
quently condemned to exile by the government of 
the Terror, and already an object of hatred to all 
parties, he had travelled for a long time in Europe 
and America, where he was sometimes obliged to 
conceal his name and to take pupils in order to 
procure the necessaries of life. Misfortune had 
given him precocious wisdom, and when afterwards 
he was a refugee in Sicily he had the adroitness to 
secure the hand of the daughter of King Ferdinand 
IV., and in a delicate situation he displayed rare 
prudence and address. He went to see Louis 
XVIII. in England and retracted what he then 
called the political errors of his youth. He divined, 



136 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

too, the future, and laid his plans for the situation 
he desired at court in case of a restoration. So he 
was very well received at the Tuileries, and for some 
time pursued a course of conduct not displeasing 
to the royal family, and the way in which he did so 
was wholly agreeable to the liberals. 

The salon of the Duchess of Orleans was very 
select. " Court homage," says M. Trognon, her 
biographer, " caused her to be sought at the Palais 
Royal. Only a small number of emigres^ faithful to 
their old enmity to the name she bore, were lacking. 
Together with the elite of old families of the king- 
dom, marshals, generals, and senators converted into 
peers of France, presented themselves to her, certain 
to meet with a better reception than they ever found 
at the Tuileries. Independently of all these people to 
whom the apartments of the Palais Royal were open, 
there was a closer and more restricted circle in which 
the first rank belonged to the Duchess Dowager and 
her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Bourbon. After 
these figured the few that still remained of the old 
familiars of the house of Orleans, to whom were 
added the new officers whom the Prince had at- 
tached to his person, — General Albert, Colonel 
Athalin, Count Camille de Sainte-Aldegonde, Vis- 
count de Rohan-Chabot, Count Thibaut, and Baron 
Raoul de Montmorency. The honorary title of 
tutor to the young Duke of Chartres was given to 
Count de Grave, one of the constitutional ministers 
of Louis XVI. during the last days of his reign." 



THE ORLEANS FAMILY 137 

Already, and in spite of the Duke's reserve, is seen 
the birth of what has been called Orleanism. As 
M. de Viel-Castel observes : " The Prince restored 
to the favor of Louis XVIII., and, so to speak, am- 
nestied, remained nevertheless an object of aversion 
and distrust to the royalists. It was known that in 
renouncing the exaggerated notions of his youth, he 
had not abjured all thought of liberty, reform, and 
improvement, and was not alien to the spirit of the 
times. It was remembered that on several occasions 
the idea of raising him to power had occurred to men 
who were looking about for means of re-establishing 
the throne without causing alarm, and without en- 
dangering new interests. His somewhat bourgeois 
manners, his familiar and easy address, forming, as 
they did, a very strong contrast to the almost orien- 
tal etiquette of the Bourbon court, seemed to many 
people a stroke of policy to win popular favor. Louis 
XVIII. did not like him, perhaps because he sus- 
pected him of ambitious designs, and perhaps because 
he foresaw that even involuntarily and by the sheer 
force of circumstances he would one day become the 
rallying-point of the malecontents. On the other 
hand, the Count of Artois, who had at the same time 
less perspicacity and a more affectionate disposition 
than his brother, showed great kindness to the Duke 
of Orleans, who had taken occasion to render him a 
number of personal services during their sojourn in 
England." 

In the words of M. Thiers, the Orleanist party 



138 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



existed of itself, without any help from the Duke of 
Orleans, who, "well educated, bright, cautious, un- 
derstanding the emigres perfectly well and joking 
about them in the privacy of his family, was so much 
pleased to be in his country once more and to regain 
there a princely position and a large fortune, that he 
thought of nothing else, and never dreamed that he 
was giving good occasion for the hatred of the roy- 
alists, which remained as bitter against him as it had 
been against his father." 

A proof that there was no connivance between the 
Prince and his partisans is that, since 1814, there had 
been an Orleanist party in abeyance, Avhich, perhaps, 
had nothing whatever to do with the actions of its 
natural head. After the return of the Bourbons, the 
instinct of the people seemed to forecast the fate 
which the hazard of revolutions held in reserve for 
the future King, Louis Philippe I. " In vain," says 
M. Yaulabelle, " did he try to make people forget 
him; no matter how great might be the pains he 
appeared to take to efface himself, the court, as well 
as the ofhcial public, was soon disquieted about him. 
The royalists, being unable to make up their minds 
to pardon him the vote which his father had cast in 
favor of the execution of Louis XVL, nor the revo- 
lutionary opinions which he himself had professed for 
a long time, were suspicious of his cautious attitude, 
and accused him of cherishing designs to place him- 
self on the throne of his Bourbon ancestors. The 
way in which he received at his house all the chief 



THE ORLEANS FAMILY 139 

notabilities of the Empire and the early days of the 
Revolution, his polite, caressing, and almost too 
popular manners, his conversation, exempt as it was 
from the prejudices which dominated at court and in 
the government, sufficed to point him out as the 
hope of the liberals." 

In Louis Philippe there were two distinct men, the 
prince and the revolutionist, and he played two dif- 
ferent parts with equal ingenuousness. He was, as 
Montaigne would have said, an undulating and 
diverse man, whose fluctuations were explainable by 
the wavering epoch in which he lived. Perhaps he 
did not acknowledge even to himself the contradic- 
tions that existed in his character as in his destiny. 
He was — involuntarily, likely enough, and by the 
force of circumstances rather than from premedita- 
tion — the representative of that fickle France which, 
while believing itself sincere in its mobility, changes 
its opinions and its flags as an actress changes her 
costumes. The prince and the revolutionist that 
were incarnate in the same man could each make use 
of a different language, — the prince at the Tuileries, 
the revolutionist at the Palais Royal. 

At the Tuileries the prince might say : "I am not 
responsible for my father's faults. He expiated them 
cruelly and repented of them before his death. His 
fate, and that of Dumouriez, my old general, set me to 
thinking in a way that opened my eyes to the truth. 
I retracted all the errors of my early youth, and 
during the whole duration of the Empire I remained 



140 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

faithful to the cause of kings. I asked the Spanish 
Cortes for a command against Bonaparte, and it is 
not my fault that England prevented me from war- 
ring against the usurper, against whom I had already 
issued a strong proclamation. I have the honor 
to be the husband of the niece of Queen Marie Antoi- 
nette, and no household is more closely united than 
mine. I am on the best of terms with my father-in- 
law. King Ferdinand, who assuredly does not suspect 
me of too liberal tendencies. I shall always be faith- 
ful to my duties as a prince of the blood. My devo- 
tion to the person of Louis XYIII., my sovereign, 
my benefactor, is absolute." 

At the Palais Royal the revolutionist might say: 
"My father died a victim to his devotion to the 
cause of liberty, and I have never disavowed my 
father. I had the honor of fighting under the shadow 
of the tricolor. I am a soldier of Jemmapes and 
Yalmy. I belong to the present and not to the past. 
The friend of progress, the foe of reaction, and 
French before being prince, I shared in none of the 
whims and prejudices of the emigres. I am not a 
man of the old regime ; I am a man of the principles 
of 1789. I will instruct my children as I myself was 
instructed, in the new ideas. Liberals, you have a 
pledge in my antecedents, and you can count upon 
me." 



XIII 



THE FAMILY OF CONDE 



IF in the House of France the Duke of Orleans 
was the representative of the new ideas, the old 
regime was, on the other hand, personified in the 
aged Prince of Conde and his son, the Duke of Bour- 
bon, who was father of the unhappy Duke of 
Enghien. Both these princes, who had never com- 
promised with the Revolution, and who had combated 
it in arms from the first, were fine types of the emi- 
gre. The ultra-royalists admired these two veterans 
of the monarchical cause, whose life was a model, 
but whose race, on the point of becoming extinct, 
already seemed but a memory of the olden times. 
The Palais Bourbon, where they lived, and which, by 
irony of fortune (for both father and son detested 
parliamentarism), stood side by side with the Chamber 
of Deputies, was the rendezvous of reactionaries 
who bitterly opposed the government of Louis XVIII. 
because, in their opinion, it was too liberal. They 
reproached the King with having entertained ad- 
vanced ideas from the beginning of his political 
career ; with his connection with the philosophers ; 
with his tardy emigration (he did not emigrate till 

141 



142 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULMiE 



1791, while the flight of the Cond^s dated from 1789) ; 
with his ministry composed almost exclusively of 
men of the Revolution and Empire ; and with his par- 
tiality for those who had taken possession of the 
national property ; and, above all, did they blame him 
on account of the Charter, which the old defenders 
of the throne and altar looked upon as an unintelli- 
gent and useless concession to the most subversive 
principles. The King cared but little for the opinion 
of the two Cond^s. He treated them civilly and 
allowed them to figure at his side in ceremonies, but 
their political rSle was confined to these official pub- 
lic appearances. 

Born on the 9th of August, 1736, Louis Joseph de 
Bourbon, Prince of Cond^, was seventy-seven years 
old at the beginning of the Restoration. His mili- 
tary reputation was fully established. At the age of 
sixteen he entered the profession of arms, and at 
once became known for his distinguished gallantry. 
In 1762, he fought the Prince of Brunswick and took 
him prisoner, together with all his artillery. His popu- 
larity was then so great that once, when he appeared 
at the Theatre Frangais after the battle of Johan- 
nisberg, the entire audience turned their faces to the 
Prince and greeted him with applause, when an 
actor spoke the words : "I drink to Mars ! " Even 
his reverses themselves inured to his fame. The 
French cannons that he saved on the day of Rossbach 
were set up for ornaments in his magnificent gardens 
at Chantilly. During the last years of the old 



THE FAMILY OF CON BE 143 

regime he had the reputation of being one of the 
bravest, most affable, and most hospitable princes in 
all Europe. He often gave what he called military 
dinners, and delighted to surround himself with 
whatever recalled to him the great martial deeds of 
his ancestors, and the battles at which he himself 
had fought. Extremely devoted to ancient traditions, 
he put no faith in the philosophers. " Good men," 
said he, " are more to my liking than brilliant men." 

The Prince of Cond^ was married twice. At the 
age of seventeen he became the husband of Charlotte 
Godefride-Elisabeth de Rohan-Soubise, by whom, in 
1756, he had the Duke of Bourbon and, in 1757, 
Mademoiselle de Conde, who died in 1760. He was 
married again on the 24th of October, 1798, to Cath- 
erine de Brignole, Princess-Dowager of Monaco, who 
died in 1813. 

During the whole Revolution and Empire, the 
Prince remained steadfast to his ideas. After the 
events of 1789, he issued a manifesto inviting royal- 
ist gentlemen to join him in his warring exile. As 
creator and head of the little army which bore his 
name, and in which three generations of his family 
had fought for the royal cause, he held it as a patri- 
otic deed to cast in his lot with the foreigners who 
were at war with republican France. When his 
army was disbanded in 1801, he retired to England, 
which country he left only to return to France with 
Louis XVIII. 

All the officers and soldiers of the old army of 



144 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Cond^ came to the Palais Bourbon to pay their 
respects to their chief and, generally, to seek aid, 
since they were nearly all poor. The Prince passed 
a considerable part of his time in signing" papers and 
acknowledgments of services rendered. For some 
weeks the applicants were nearly all gentlemen who 
were survivors of the army of Conde. But soon the 
number of his visitors became so large that the aged 
Prince said : " It is strange that all these gentlemen 
pretend they know me ; this can hardly be the case, 
for down there I had only a few regiments, and now 
a whole army is flocking to see me." 

In his Souvenirs^ Count Alexandre de Puymaigre 
says : " As to the Prince of Conde, my old general, and 
the patron of my father and my family, he was always 
faithful to his chivalrous traditions, and exhausted 
himself in endeavors to get a place for me ; but his 
great age, the political insignificance of his son, and the 
approaching end of his illustrious race, unfitted him 
for having much influence. The intelligence of the 
Prince was sometimes clouded, and then he confused 
men and epochs, — an excusable thing in a man of 
his years. I remember being with him one Sunday, 
when the Duke of Dalmatia (Marshal Soult) was 
announced, together with Count Beugnot, both of 
whom the King had just called to the ministry, — 
' Who are these people ? ' the Prince asked us ; but 
before any one could reply, they were introduced. 
' Monsieur,' said the Prince to the Marshal, ' I trust 
that you will continue to serve the King as you have 



THE FAMILY OF CONDE 145 

always done, and with the same zeah' This con- 
fusion of ideas amused us very much, and especially 
so did the embarrassed air of the new Minister of 
War, who was never noted for bashfulness." 

Another anecdote, somewhat touched up, perhaps, 
but in any case diverting, is related. One day, M. 
de Talleyrand-Perigord was announced at the salon 
of the Prince of Conde. The Prince rose, received 
his visitor, and recognized him perfectly well. He 
was the famous Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. But the Prince pretended to take him for 
Monseigneur de Talleyrand, Archbishop of Rheims 
and Grand Almoner of France. This prelate was 
the famous diplomate's uncle, and, like the Prince 
of Conde, had emigrated, been the companion of the 
Prince's exile, and returned with him from England, 
along with the King. "Ah, my dear Archbishop," 
exclaimed the old Prince, "how delighted I am to 
see you ! " Then, entering into conversation and 
speaking of the past, he inveighed against the Revo- 
lution, the Empire, and all w4io had served these 
two abhorred regimes. " It pains me to say so," he 
added, " but of all those rascals the most odious, my 
dear Archbishop, is unquestionably your own nephew, 
who, doubly apostate as gentleman and as priest, was 
one of Bonaparte's chief ministers when my grand- 
son, the Duke of Enghien, was assassinated." The 
King's Minister of Foreign Affairs said not a word, 
and remained unmoved. At length he rose to go ; 
"Adieu, Mr. Archbishop," said the Prince; "come to 



146 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

see me again, but, I conjure you, never bring with 
you that scamp whom you have the misfortune to 
call your nephew ; for if he comes, I shall be obliged 
to have him thrown out of the window." 

The Duke of Bourbon, son of the Prince of Cond^, 
held the same ideas and sentiments as his father. 
He was born on the 13th of April, 1756, and married 
Louise Marie Therdse Bathilde d'Orleans, on the 24th 
of April, 1770. The Duke of Enghien was born of 
this marriage, in 1772. Associated with the desti- 
nies of his father, the Duke of Bourbon had followed 
him, first in the army of Conde, and then on his 
exile to England. The two returned to France 
together. Caring very little for politics, and sur- 
rounded with some women and a few friends who 
had shared his exile, he spent the greater part of his 
time at the chateau of Chantilly, and distracted his 
attention from his troubles by going on continual 
hunts in the forests, that recalled his infancy and 
early youth. (Upon the death of his father, on the 
13th of May, 1818, he took the title of Prince of 
Conde, and died on the 27th of August, 1830, by 
suicide, some say, although, according to others, he 
was assassinated. By a will, dated on the 30th of 
August, 1829, the Duke of Aumale was made his 
heir.) 

His wife, Louise Marie Ther^se Bathilde d'Orleans, 
was born at Saint Cloud on the 9th of July, 1750. She 
was the daughter of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, 
grandson of the Regent, and was the sister of Philippe 



THE FAMILY OF CON BE 147 

Egalit^, and aunt of the Prince who became King 
Louis Philippe. When the Duke of Bourbon was 
hardly fifteen years old, he fell in love with the Prin- 
cess, who was six years his senior. This marriage, 
of which the Duke of Enghien was born, was not 
happy. The couple soon separated. The Duke re- 
turned her dowry to the House of Orleans, and made 
a small addition to it. Left alone, the Princess gave 
herself up to a mixture of mystical and revolutionary 
notions. She became intimate with Catherine Theo, 
who wanted to be called the " Mother of God," and 
she paid much attention to the predictions of the 
Carthusian friar, Dom Gerle. On the outbreak of 
the Revolution, she gave her protection to the con- 
stitutional bishops. Notwithstanding this she was 
imprisoned, under the Terror, in the fortress of Saint- 
Jean at Marseilles, where she remained from May, 
1793, till the 29th of April, 1795. She then found 
refuge at Soria, near Barcelona, in Spain, in a country 
house, where she took care of the sick. While there 
she entered upon a correspondence that was exten- 
sive and sometimes peculiar. She affected one of 
the Illuminati, Saint-Martin, who in 1796 wrote a 
work for her, entitled Ecce Homo. In 1800 she 
wrote a letter, demanding that there should be no 
distinctions among men except those that should be 
based on virtue, intelligence, talents, and education ; 
that the law should prevent the accumulation of 
extremely lai^ge properties, and that everybody should 
be ashamed to be too rich. " Whatever," she added, 



148 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

" may have been the consequences of the Eevolution, 
I can never quarrel with the object it had in view, but 
only with the means that it employed." 

When she returned to France at the commence- 
ment of the Restoration, the Duchess did not go to 
the Palais Bourbon, but took up her residence in the 
rue de Varennes, at the HOtel Monaco, now the home 
of the Duchess of Galliera. Being very charitable, 
she received a host of poor people at her house, 
which she sometimes called the Hospital d'Enghien. 
Strange as it was, the mother of the victim of the 
trenches of Vincennes did not have a reputation for 
hostility to Napoleon, the murderer of her son. It is 
certain that she remained in France all through the 
Hundred Days, and that she received, as also did 
the Duchess Dowager of Orleans, a pension from the 
Emperor. It was owing to the request of Queen 
Hortense that this pension was given to the two 
princesses. How strange a time, when the mother 
of the Duke of Enghien was the pensionary of Napo- 
leon ! But the sight of Queen Hortense receiving 
from Louis XVIII. the title of Duchess of Saint-Leu, 
at the instance of the Emperor of Russia, was not, 
perhaps, less surprising. 

The Duke of Bourbon had a sister, Louise Adelaide 
de Bourbon-Cond^, who was worthy of the highest 
esteem. Born on the 5th of October, 1757, this pious 
Princess first shone at the court of Versailles and the 
chS-teau of Chantilly. At that epoch she was called 
Mademoiselle de Cond^, and it seems that for a time 



THE FAMILY OF CONDE 149 

there was some thought of makmg her the wife of 
the Count of Artois. The Baroness of Oberkirch 
thus speaks of this matter in her Souvenirs : " She is 
one of those people so far above others that their 
high rank adds nothing to their personal importance. 
Mademoiselle de Conde, if born in a farmhouse, 
would have been the chief personage in it, and yet 
have resembled no other peasant, merely through 
her superior intelligence and innate distinction. She 
is, indeed, beautiful, but in the manner of queens ; 
majesty and power are in her smile. Nevertheless 
she has a very tender heart; she has a forehead fitted 
to wear either a crov/n or a nun's veil." She preferred 
the veil of religion. In 1786, she became the Abbess 
of Remiremont. During the emigration she entered 
the nunnery of Sainte-Vallee-de-Dieu, in Valais, under 
the name of Sister Marie- Joseph. Driven from this 
asylum by the republican invasion, she drove in a 
carriage to Constance ; thence to Lintz ; from there 
to Orcha in Russia ; and then to Warsaw, where she 
entered the convent of the Benedictines of the Per- 
petual Adoration, under the name of Sister Marie 
Louise de la Misericorde. There she learned of 
the death of her unfortunate nephew, the Duke of 
Enghien. Thence she proceeded to England to take 
the most tender care of the grandfather and the father 
of that Prince. When she returned to France at the 
beginning of the Restoration, she received from the 
King the mansion of the Temple, and became the pri- 
oress of the convent of the Benedictines of Perpetual 



150 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULE'ME 

Adoration, which she established near the site of the 
tower where Louis XVI. and his family underwent 
their dolorous captivity. 

The Duchess of Angouleme was delighted to see 
her pious relative so devoted to religion. The 
orphan of the Temple had, besides, very lively sym- 
pathy for the Condes, and especially for the aged 
Prince. In January, 1815, at Twelfth-Night, Louis 
XVIII. gave a family dinner at the Tuileries. The 
traditional cake was cut. The bean fell to the 
Duchess of Angouleme, who took pains to choose 
the Prince of Conde for king. 



xiy 

THE FETE AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE 

WE have endeavored to describe the society 
in which the Duchess of Angouleme lived, 
and to portray the persons who composed her family. 
We shall now take up once more the thread of our 
story with the month of August, 1814. During the 
early part of the month the Duchess assisted at the 
f^tes given in her honor by the city of Lyons. 
After her return to Paris on the 13th, she went, on 
the 15th, to divine service at the metropolitan 
church, where the traditional procession of the vow 
of Louis XIII. was under way. 

" After vespers," said the Journal des Bebats, " the 
procession left the cathedral. It advanced in per- 
fect order through a great multitude of people, who 
looked affectionately upon the princes and Madame, 
who, in pious meditation, followed on foot the image 
of the great patroness of France. The day deserves 
to be memorable. It has restored one of our ancient 
customs to us. Religion is the mother of all the 
virtues, and virtue alone can bring prosperity to a 
nation." 

151 



152 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

On the 17th of August, the Duchess of Angouleme 
went to visit the rooms and gardens of the chateau 
of Versailles and the Trianons. She desired to see 
it all once more, — - the chapel in which, when a child, 
she had prayed, alas I in vain, for the safety of the 
monarchy ; the foliage that had thrown its shadow on 
her earliest footsteps ; the Petit Trianon, where her 
mother's happy days had glided by; the grotto in 
which the Queen learned, on the 5th of October, 
1789, of the arrival of the invaders ; the balcony 
of the chateau, where the heroic Princess, holding 
her son and daughter by the hand, had majestically 
confronted the furious mob, which, in order to guard 
against involuntary compassion, cried in its rage : 
"No children! No children!" The orphan mused 
in the chamber where she and her two unfortunate 
brothers, the dauphins, were born. Then she re- 
turned to the Tuileries, recalling the journey she 
once made from Versailles to that palace, preceded 
by demoniacs who bore on pikes the livid heads of 
massacred body-guards as bloody trophies. Thus it 
was that, even in the midst of a fleeting prosperity, 
the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette 
was oppressed by sorrowful memories. 

The 25th of August was Louis XVIII.'s saint's 
day, and in honor of it he held a reception in the 
throne-room of the Tuileries. At six o'clock in the 
evening the King assisted at a great dinner. The 
people who had been presented, together with a 
large number of men and women who had been 



THE FETE AT THE HOTEL BE VILLE 153 

invited to dine, passed in succession before Louis 
XVIII., who responded affably to their lively 
expressions of pleasure at seeing the royal family 
reunited, while, from all parts of the garden con- 
tinuous shouts gave expression to the feelings of a 
large assembly that did not withdraw till long after 
the usual hour. The whole city was illuminated. 
Paris appeared joyful. One would have said that 
the people's old love for its Kings had returned. 
But the Duchess of Angouleme, whom cruel expe- 
rience had rendered mistrustful, put but little faith 
in the fidelity of the French nation. 

On the 29th of August, the Princess assisted at 
the great f^te given to Louis XVIII. by the city of 
Paris. This fete is a very curious study; for it 
makes one understand the prejudices and passions 
of an epoch when two regimes, the old and the 
new, were perpetually at strife with each other, and 
when happenings, to all appearance trifling, dis- 
closed all the anomalies of the situation, the conflict 
of interests, the violence of pride, and the fierceness 
of intrigue. 

Madame de Stael says : " Among the difficulties 
that had to be overcome by the ministry in 1814, 
the influence exerted by the salons was the greatest. 
Bonaparte had revived the old court customs, but 
had added to them all the faults of the least refined 
classes. The result of this was that the love of 
power, and the pride that it inspires, were stronger 
and more violent in the Bonapartists than in the 



154 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

Synigres. The Bonapartists had been fawned upon 
by Parisian society during their reign, just as the 
royalist party which succeeded them was, and noth- 
ing hurt their feelings more than to hold only a 
subordinate place in the same salons where once 
they had been masters. Besides this, the men of 
the old regime possessed those advantages which 
graciousness and the habitual good manners of a 
former time gave them ; consequently there was con- 
stant jealousy between the old and the new titles, 
and in the new men fierce passions were aroused by 
every little event that arose from rival claims to 
respect." 

The f^te of the Hotel de Ville gave an opportunity 
for the old and the new nobility to study each other, 
and that beautiful fete which its originators intended 
as a celebration of conciliation and concord had its 
outcome in puerile rivalries, at which one may smile 
to-day, but which, in 1814, had in public life, and 
especially at court, nearly as much importance as the 
gravest political occurrences. Then, as in the days 
of the Duke of Saint-Simon, aristocrats and bourgeois 
flew into a passion over the merest questions of eti- 
quette. 

In the first place, there was a very lively quarrel 
between the body-guards and the national guards. 
The body-guards claimed the right to occupy the 
interior of the H6tel de Ville, and wished to relegate 
the national guards to the outside. From this a 
fierce discussion arose. '' The j^rivilege of watching 



THE FETE AT THE HOTEL BE VILLE 155 

over the person of the King," cried the bodj^-guards, 
" is ours, as is indicated by our name. It is a right, 
a duty, which we can share with nobody whomso- 
ever." — " At the H6tel de Ville," replied the officers 
of the national guard, " we are in our own house, and 
nobody can dispute our claim to superiority in the 
right to entertain the King in our own palace." 

As the debate was growing violent, the King made 
himself umpire, and decided that half of the body- 
guard and half of the national guard should be dis- 
tributed through the apartments. 

Another question was presented which was yet 
more perplexing : It had been decided that thirtj^- 
six women should be admitted to the royal table. 
But in what proportion should they be selected for 
the municipal banquet from the new nobility, which 
held their titles by the terms of the Charter, and the 
old nobility, which had regained theirs? This was 
the problem to be solved. The new nobility was 
confounded when it saw that only five places were 
reserved for it. The common citizens considered 
themselves still more humiliated, since, among all 
the thirty-six ladies, there were only two who did 
not belong to the nobility, and because at a fete 
given by the city the municipal body was not repre- 
sented by any woman. 

Following is the list? of the thirty-six ladies, as it 
appeared in the Moniteur : The Duchess of Fleury, 
the Duchess of Duras, the Countess of Blacas, the 
Marchioness of Avar ay, the Marchioness of Boisgelin, 



156 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

the Countess of Escars, the Marchioness of Brez^, the 
Duchess of Serent, the Countess of Damas, Madame 
de Choisy, the Duchess of Yauguyon, the Princess 
of Beaufremont, the Countess of Narbonne, the Vis- 
countess of Narbonne, the Duchess of Maille, the 
Countess of Durfort, the Countess of Nansouty, the 
Marchioness of Lagrange, the Marchioness of La 
Roche jacquelein, the Duchess of Rohajn-Montbazon, 
the Princess of Chalais, the Duchess of Coigny, the 
Duchess of Mouchy, the Duchess of Rohan, the Prin- 
cess of Solre, the Princess of Wagram, the Countess 
of Bournonville, Madame Ferrand, Countess Maison, 
Marechale Suchet, the Duchess of Albufera, Mare- 
chale Oudinot (Duchess of Reggio), the Princess of 
Laval, the Duchess of Harcourt, the Marchioness of 
Tourzel, and the Baroness of Montboissier. 

Resignation is the salve for wounded self-love. 
Difficulties of etiquette are arranged according to 
inexorable laws. The fete takes place on the 27th of 
August. It is very fine. The King leaves the Tui- 
leries at five in the afternoon. He is in a gala coach, 
with his brother, the Duke and Duchess of Angou- 
leme, and the Duke of Berry. The troops form in 
double line. A large escort precedes and follows 
the royal carriage. The whole distance that the 
train must go is strewn with gravel. Most of the 
houses of the quay are adortied with flags, inscrip- 
tions, and emblems. At every window there are 
spectators who join in the cheers of the crowd. On 
his arrival at the H6tel de Yille, the first thing that 



THE FJ^TE AT THE h6tEL BE VILLE 157 

meets Louis XVIII. 's eyes when he enters the great 
hall is the portrait of Henri IV. placed above the 
throne. " I shall be fortunate indeed," says he, ''if 
my subjects think that I have taken for my model 
the good king whose features are here delineated." 

Baron de Chabrol, prefect of the Seine, then 
delivers an address, of which the following is a 
part: "In one moment France frees itself from its 
shackles and reassumes its noble position. .. . . All 
hearts are cheered at the sight of a princess who is 
the very model of virtue, whom heaven has so long 
tried, and whom its eternal justice must at last 
restore to happiness." The King replies : *' I am most 
deeply moved at being reunited with my large fam- 
ily, but I have had to wait in order to be surrounded 
by it " (here the King pointed to the princes about 
him). " They were my consolation in adversity, and 
to-day they are my chief blessing. They have given 
me proofs that they share in all my designs for your 
happiness. I can hereafter close my eyes in peace, 
since I am sure that they will inherit my sentiments 
in regard to France." Baroness de Chabrol, the pre- 
fect's wife, then addressed the Duchess of Angou- 
leme in these words : "Memory still recalls to us the 
tears we shed in our infancy at the story of your 
noble constancy and your long continued misfor- 
tunes. We can truly say that it is in the hearts of 
women that the sacred flame of love for our kings 
burns brightest and most purely." 

The royal family enters the magnificent hall 



158 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

where the great banquet which has been the cause 
of so many rivalries and jealousies is to be given. 
The arms of the chief cities of the realm are among 
the decorations. At the foot of the dais on which 
the King is to sit, natural lilies are grouped artis- 
tically and reflected in the mirrors. On his way 
to the dais, the King observes in the centre of the 
table a design in sable, representing Henri lY. at 
supper. At the King's right sits Monsieur his 
brother, at his left Madame, the Duchess of Angou- 
leme, while his nephews, the Duke of Angouleme 
and the Duke of Berry are seated, the former be- 
side Monsieur, and the second beside Madame. The 
thirty-six ladies admitted to the much-coveted honor 
of sitting at the royal table take their places. None 
others are at the banquet. The King is served by 
Baron de Chabrol, prefect of the Seine ; the Duchess 
of Angouleme, by the Baroness de Chabrol ; Monsieur, 
by the eldest of the mayors and the president of 
the municipal council; the Duke of Berry and 
the Duke of Angouleme, by members of the same 
council ; and the thirty-six ladies, by persons desig- 
nated by the council. 

As soon as the banquet is ended, the concert begins. 
A cantata, of which the words are by the poet Mille- 
voie and the music by Cherubini, is rendered. 
After the concert, the King goes to the ball-room, 
which he leaves at half-past nine in the evening 
with the same ceremonies that took place when he 
came. Before entering his carriage, he says to the 



THE FETE AT THE HOTEL BE VILLE 159 

prefect: "I have nowhere seen a fete so beautiful, 
and, above all, so touching to my heart. I shall 
count this day, on which I have received so many 
evidences of affection, among the happiest of my 
life." 

On the day after the fete the courtiers went 
into ecstasies over its magnificence and the salutary 
impression which, as they imagined, it had produced. 
They asseverated that all who had had the honor 
and happiness of being present would never forget 
it, that never under the rule of the usurper had 
anything so beautiful been seen, and that legitimate 
royalty alone could offer such a spectacle. Never- 
theless, the very fete which they admired so much 
had discontented and affronted many people. The 
wives of the members of the municipal council 
were inconsolable for having been excluded from 
that privileged banquet. The nobility of the Em- 
pire lamented the fact that so few of their class 
had received invitations. The prerogative of serv- 
ing the King and Princes at table was but slightly 
flattering to those to whom it had been given. It 
is true that these high domestic functions were 
formerly exercised on formal occasions by the great- 
est personages in the kingdom, but after the Revo- 
lution such an antique ceremonial seemed slightly 
out of place. In conclusion, it should be noted that 
a liberal journal, the Censeu)\ contented itself with 
saying, as its sole criticism of this fete of the old 
regime, that some days previously, when a banquet 



160 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



had been given by the city of Berlin to the officers 
of the Prussian royal guard and the Russian impe- 
rial guard, the King of Prussia and his ministers 
had sat down with the chief burgomaster of the 
city. 



XV , 

THE DISTRIBUTION OE FLAGS 



EIROM this time royalty deemed itself invulner- 
able and invincible. The ceremony of dis- 
tributing and blessing the flags of the Paris national 
guard, which took place on the 7th of September, 
1814, on the Champ-de-Mars, confirmed it still fur- 
ther in this robust faith in itself. A platform for 
the royal throne was erected before the Military 
School, and in the middle of the Champ-de-Mars 
stood an altar. At half-past nine o'clock in the 
morning the whole national guard was under arms 
and in order of battle. At half after eleven the 
firing of cannon announced the sovereign's arrival. 
Upon entering the field, the King took a carriage 
drawn by eight horses, and, accompanied only by 
the Duchess of Angouleme, he reviewed the troops. 
Monsieur, the King's brother, in his capacity as 
commander of the national guard of the kingdom, 
stationed himself at the carriage-door and pointed 
out the different corps to the King. 

After the review His Majesty left the carriage, 
in front of the Military School, ascended the plat- 
form, and seated himself on the throne. Surrounded 

161 



162 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

by the principal officers of the crown and marshals 
and generals of France, he had his brother on his 
right and his niece, the Duchess of Angoul^me, on 
his left hand. Mgr. Talleyrand-Perigord, Archbishop 
of Rheims and Grand Almoner of France, was at the 
altar. The King received the flag of the first legion 
from Monsieur's hands and lowered the head of the 
lance towards the Duchess of Angouleme, who at- 
tached the tassel to it. He then gave it to the chief 
of the first legion, who, coming down from the plat- 
form, saluted with it and went to rejoin the detach- 
ment to which he belonged. The flags of eleven 
other legions and that of the national horse guards 
were returned in the same way. The officers then 
advanced to the altar, where tlie Grand Almoner 
blessed the flags. Then the whole guard defiled 
before the throne. 

After it had passed, the King said : " This is a 
very fine day for me, gentlemen ; it binds me anew 
to my brave national guard. What may not one 
hope from the French when he sees such troops, 
which zeal alone has called into existence ? Let the 
enemy come against us when he Avill. But no such 
event will happen. We look only for friends." The 
King's brother then said : " Sire, the national guard 
is profoundly sensible of the great honor that Your 
Majesty has done it, by personally presenting it with 
its flags. I can assure you. Sire, that the guard is 
worthy of that honor. All are ready to die for Your 
Majesty's person, and among so many faithful sub- 



THE DISTBIBUTION OF FLAGS 163 

jects none is more devoted than their commander." 
The national guards then cried: "Yes, yes; we swear 
it. Long live the King ! " The King then stretched 
his arms out to his brother, drew him to his breast 
and embraced him, and, as the Moniteur says, tears 
of sympathy fell from all eyes. 

Prayers of the Church, acclamations, an altar in 
the middle of the Champ-de-Mars, decorations on the 
Military School, salvos of artillery, hyperbole in the 
Moniteur^ official enthusiasm, touching phrases,— 
'tis all the same thing under the Empire or under 
the Kingship. Fraternization, the distribution of 
eagles and white flags, — it is all the same spectacle, 
the same pomp. The crowd is gathered on the same 
slopes ; the world of officials is present in the same 
dress, on the same balcony. The sovereign changes. 
Tlie flags are not of the same color. Now there are 
lilies, and now there are bees. But etiquette endures. 
Solemnities are got up on demand. In conducting 
them, the same masters-of-ceremonies may be used, 
and the same editors may be employed to report 
them in the official journal. Why not keep this 
throne, this platform, this altar, among the ordinary 
appurtenances of the monarchy, whatever it may be? 
The tapestry will only have to be changed a little, 
and all these trappings will do duty next year for 
Napoleon's Field of May. Some sincere persons, 
some men of convictions, have deep and genuine 
political feelings. But, in general, the bulk of the 
people is indifferent enough. It looks with a certain 



164 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

curiosity at the scenery and decorations. It follows 
the action attentively. Occasionally it is moved. It 
even weeps. But, the play once over, it thinks only 
of its own affairs. It forgets both play and actors. 

As to princes, they nearly always look upon ova- 
tions to them as serious matters, and this in spite of 
experience. Who would not believe in a political 
religion in which one's self is the idol ? Incense is 
more intoxicating than wine. Deceived from morn- 
ing till night and from night till morning by their 
courtiers, men in power, no matter who they may be, 
princes or republicans, live in a factitious atmosphere 
and believe more firmly in their own stability, the 
nearer they draw to their downfall. In France infat- 
uation is the ruin of all governments, — royalty, 
empire, or republic. There is the rock on which 
even the greatest men are broken. 

At the close of 1814, the throne was already under- 
mined, although no one near the King dreamed of 
the impending peril. Royalist writers redoubled 
their confidence and enthusiasm. In his Reflexions 
politiques^ published in December, Chateaubriand 
said: "Each day sees a diminution of the small 
number of our opponents ; absurd tales and popular 
fears are dying out, and commerce is reviving. Who 
can lay his hand on his breast and explain what he 
has to complain of ? Never was there a more settled 
calm after a storm. The government, which has en- 
dured for eight months, is so firmly established that 
if to-day it should make mistake after mistake, it 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF FLAGS 165 

would continue to exist in spite of its errors." And, 
exulting over the wisdom of the King, the author of 
the G-enie du Christianisme adds : " Immovable on 
his throne, the King has calmed the waves around 
him ; he has yielded to no influence and to no 
party. His patience confounds ; his goodness subju- 
gates and enchains, and his serenity is communicated 
to all. . . . When anybody comes nigh him, he always 
seems to say : ' Where could you find a better father ? 
Let me heal your wounds. I forget my own that I 
may remember only those of others. At my age and 
after my misfortunes can I love the throne on account 
of myself ? It is for you that I am on it ; I would 
make you as happy as you have been unfortunate.' 
Any man who observes himself and the course of 
events and fails to heap blessings on the prince 
whom heaven has restored to us, is unworthy to be 
ruled by such a prince." 

The Bourbons thought they could depend on the 
army. At the beginning of December, Marshal Soult 
had been made Minister of War. He was then the 
favorite of the most outspoken royalists. When 
he was commantlant of the 13th Military Division 
and governor of Brittany, he formed, in October, a 
Breton society for erecting a monument in memory 
of Duguesclin, Constable of France. In the follow- 
ing month he started a subscription to erect a monu- 
ment on the island of Quiberon, and a mortuary 
chapel at La Chartreuse, near Auray, on the field 
where the defenders of the royal cause had fallen, 



166 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 



and wliicli had been consecrated under the name of 
the " Field of Martyrs." In the salons of the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain the marshal then passed for an 
exceedingly circumspect man. He added greatly to 
his reputation by establishing a chapel in the man- 
sion of the Ministry of War, and having Mass cel- 
ebrated in it, which he attended with edifying 
regularity. He promised to maintain the strictest 
discipline in the army, and to show no pity to officers 
who were suspected of Bonapartist tendencies. One 
of his first ministerial acts was to nominate for Grand 
Chancellor of the Legion of Honor an old emigrS^ 
Count de Bruges, who was one of the men most 
respected at the Pavilion of Marsan. The royalists 
said that, with a commander of the character, energy, 
and loyalty of Marshal Soult, the army would be as 
obedient as a child under the rod. They never sus- 
pected that, six months afterwards, the marshal 
would be in the field as the major-general of 
Napoleon. 



XVI 



SAINT-DENIS 



rilHE day of the aniversary of the murder of Louis 
JL XVI. was drawing near. While Louis XVIII. 
was exulting in the Tuileries, no one knew what had 
become of the remains of the martyred King and 
Queen. On the 21st of January, 1793, the dead body 
of Louis XVI., and on the 16th of October, in the 
same year, that of Queen Marie Antoinette, had been 
dragged in a cart from the Place de la Revolution, 
the place of execution, to the cemetery of the Made- 
leine, adjoining the street of Anjou-Saint-Honore. 
No tombs marked the spot where either the decapi- 
tated King or Queen was buried. There was nothing 
to indicate their graves, — no inscription, no stone, 
no cross, — nothing; absolutely nothing. The very 
cemetery itself had ceased to exist. At that time, as 
little respect had been paid to cemeteries as to 
churches. The graveyard had been sold to private 
persons like common soil, and without care for the 
dead. Nevertheless, the man who had bought that 
part of it where the King and Queen lay, was a roy- 
alist with a taste for souvenirs. His name was M. 
Descloseaux. He planted some trees to serve as 

167 



168 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

data. But under the Revolution and the Empire, 
nobody but himself went to meditate in the sacred 
enclosure. There were no pilgrimages, no prayers ; 
and it was only approximately known where the 
bodies of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were 
interred. 

The government of Louis XVIII. ordered that 
research be made. Four witnesses of the burials 
were interrogated. These were a priest, a judge, a 
registrar, and a lawyer. The body first found was 
the Queen's. The lime had not entirely consumed 
it. The expression of the face was recognized, and 
some fragments of dress aided in the identification. 
King Louis XVI.'s body was found near by. The 
severed head had been placed between the legs, which 
now, by the action of time and lime, had dwindled to 
mere bones. A proces-verhal^ signed by the principal 
personages of the realm, verified this double dis- 
covery. 

The bodies were exhumed on the 18th of January, 
1815. On the next day the Journal des Debats con- 
tained an article by Chateaubriand which began as 
follows : " The 21st of January is at hand, and for a 
long time the question has been asked : ' What shall 
we do ? What shall France do ? Shall that mourn- 
ful day be allowed to pass without any mark of 
regret ? Where are the ashes of Louis XVI. ? Who 
has them in keeping?' Had it not been for the 
piety of an obscure citizen it would scarcely be 
known to-day where lies the sacred body of that King 



SAINT-BENIS 169 



who should repose in Saint-Denis beside Louis XII. 
and Charles the Wise. For several years they 
sought to turn the day of the death of this just man 
into a day of rejoicing ; but how blind were the fac- 
tions ! While they were attempting to remove the 
pall of mourning that covered our country, and 
while they were ordaining derisory pomps, citizens 
were multiplying the marks of their grief ; each 
wept in solitude, or caused the expiatory sacrifice 
celebrated in secret. 

"In vain," continued Chateaubriand, "did a few 
men summon the masses to abominable spectacles; 
public sorrow seemed to say to them : ' No, France 
is not guilty along with you; she has no share in 
your crimes and festivals.' What an abyss of reflec- 
tions ! How great is the resemblance between the 
occurrences, the times, the places, and the funereal 
pomps of Saint Louis and Louis the Martyr ! " 

This eloquent writer then recalls the fact that 
Napoleon restored the vaults of the Church of Saint- 
Denis, in the hope that they would be his imperial 
sepulchre. "Why," adds the author of the GSnie 
du Christianisme, "is Saint-Denis vacant? Rather 
let us ask why its roof has been restored ; why is its 
altar rebuilt? What hand reconstructed the vault 
of those crypts and made ready those once empty 
tombs? The hand of the very man who sat on the 
throne of the Bourbons. O Providence ! He imag- 
ined that he was preparing the sepulchres of his own 
race, and he was but building the tomb of Louis 



170 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

XVI. Injustice reigns but for an instant; wisdom 
alone has regard for ancestors and leaves a posterity. 
Behold at the same time, the Master of the Earth 
meet his downfall, Louis XVIII. grasp his sceptre 
once more, and Louis XVI. restored to the sepul- 
chre of his fathers ! The kingship of the legitimate 
monarchs has slumbered for twenty years ; but their 
rights, founded on their virtues, were, like their 
nobleness, indestructible. At one blow, God ends 
that terrible revolution, and at the same time the 
Kings of France regain their throne and their tombs." 
It was also announced that while the mortal 
remains of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were 
being taken to Saint-Denis, the first stone of the 
monument which France was about to erect on the 
Place Louis XV., where the King and Queen were 
guillotined, would be laid. This monument was 
intended to represent Louis XVI. about to mount 
the scaffold. An angel was to support him, and 
seem to repeat the celebrated phrase : " Son of 
Saint Louis, ascend to heaven ! " On one face of 
the pedestal was to be a medallion portrait of Marie 
Antoinette, having as its legend those magnanimous 
words of the Queen : " I have seen all, understood 
all, and forgotten all." On another face of the 
pedestal, there was to be a bas-relief portrait of 
Madame Elisabeth, surrounded by these words : '' Do 
not undeceive them," — that heroic and sublime 
expression uttered by the saintly Princess on the 
20th of June, 1792, when the Tuileries was invaded 



SAINT-DENIS 171 



by men who, mistaking her for the Queen, threatened 
to murder her. On the third side of the pedestal 
was to be inscribed the will of Louis XVI. ; that 
beautiful line : " I pardon with my whole soul all 
who have made themselves my enemies," was to 
appear in very large letters. The fourth face would 
bear the escutcheon of France with the following 
inscription i " Louis XVIII. to Louis XVI." 

After having given the details of the project, 
Chateaubriand added : " The King, who hitherto has 
not ventured to go to that bloody field, may some 
day pass it, if not without sorrow, at least without 
horror, whilst the judge of Louis XVI., in the shelter 
of this monument of pity, may himself visit the spot, 
if not without remorse, at least without fear. In fine, 
this monument will be a source of consolation to all 
Frenchmen." 

Exactly twenty-two years after the execution of 
Louis XVI., — that is to say, on the 21st of January, 
1814, — the ashes of the King and Queen were borne 
to the abbey church of Saint-Denis, and their solemn 
obsequies were celebrated at that necropolis of Kings. 
About eight o'clock' in the morning, the King's 
brother, the Count of Artois, and his two sons, the 
Dukes of Angouleme and of Berry, went to the rue 
d'Anjou-Saint-IIonor^, to the enclosure in which now 
stands the expiatory chapel, built by the architects 
Fontaine and Percier, and modelled after a mortuary 
church of Rimini. Both coffins were deposited under 
a tent, " an image," says M. Alfred Nettement, " of 



172 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

tlie instability of everything in this land of France, 
to which all things come and where nothing re- 
mains." 

The three princes, one a brother and the other 
two nephews of the martyred King, kneel and pray 
for a long time, beside the coffins. At nine o'clock, 
the funeral procession moves through the rue Saint- 
Honor^, and then along the boulevards. The mortal 
remains of the King and Queen were carried on a 
car, by twelve members of the Scotch company 
of the body-guards. Notwithstanding the extreme 
coldness of the day, there was a vast crowd all along 
the route. The procession moved in the following 
order : a detachment of gendarmes, a squadron of hus- 
sars, companies of grenadiers and light infantry, march- 
ing in close rank and carrying their guns reversed on 
the left arm ; General Maison, governor of Paris, with 
his staff, a mounted detachment of the national 
guards, and a battalion of foot of the national guard 
preceding General Dessoles ; a half-squadron of 
mounted grenadiers of the King's body-guard, in 
advance of three coaches, each drawn by eight horses, 
and in which were the chief officers of the princes ; 
a half-squadron of light-horse ; eight eight-horse car- 
riages in which were the principal officers of the 
crown ; the carriage of the King's brother and the 
Dukes of Angouleme and Berry ; four heralds-of- 
arms and the king-of-arms, all mounted; the Grand 
Master of Ceremonies, with masters and aides, all 
mounted also ; the funeral car, with the captains of 



SAINT-DENIS 173 



the red companies, one at each wheel. Troops and 
a great number of the King's coaches closed the pro- 
cession. The regiments of the Paris garrison lined 
the rue d'Anjou as far as the barrier of Saint-Denis. 
Every tiling wore an aspect of sorrow. The flags 
were draped. It was remembered that some of the 
men who took part in the ceremonies had followed 
Louis XVI. when he was removed from the Temple 
to the place of execution. The muffled drums which 
at intervals gave forth their deep tones did not pre- 
clude the thought of other drums, those of Santerre, 
which drowned the voice of Louis XVI. when the 
Martyr-King wished to speak words of pardon from 
the scaffold. The procession moved slowly in the 
midst of a crowd of spectators. Survivors of the Rev- 
olution told their children about the 21st of January, 
1793. They said that on that day all Paris, with the 
exception of a few madmen, was deeply grieved and 
that remorse already hovered over the great capital. 

The Duchess of Angouleme was not present at the 
ceremony, as it was not then customary for daugh- 
ters to appear at the funerals of their fathers and 
mothers. But everybody thought of the orphan of 
the Temple. She remained at the Tuileries locked 
in her oratory, praying and weeping. There she 
listened to the far-off echo of salvos of artillery dis- 
charged every minute at the barrier Saint-Denis, by 
a battery from the provinces, while the funeral pro- 
cession, which did not reach the ancient necropolis 
till noon, moved along. 



174 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

The sight of the abbey stirred sinister thoughts. 
It was to that place that the regicides had pursued 
even death, to rummage, mutilate, and violate the 
tombs of the kings. At length the hour of puri- 
fication had sounded, the blessed hour v^^hich the 
daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had 
so longed for during the long anguish of captivity 
and exile. The multitude that thronged the church 
was deeply moved. Beside the cenotaph were the 
Duke of Orleans, his sister, his wife, the Prince of 
Cond^, and the Duke and Duchess of Bourbon. 
Four hundred daughters of the Legion of Honor 
were assembled in the nave. The Abbe de Boulogne, 
Bishop of Troyes, and the most renowned preacher of 
his day, ascended the pulpit. "Peoples and kings!" 
he exclaimed, "by your battered and encompassed 
capitals, you recognize at last the terrible truth, that 
regicide is the greatest calamity that God can draw 
from the treasure-house of His justice ! " And the 
audience trembled when, in a ' burning apostrophe 
to the revolutionists, the priest said : " Insensates ! 
you thought you debased your King, and you have 
enhanced his glory! You trampled under foot his 
earthly crown, and you have circled his brow with a 
crown of immortality. When you bound his anointed 
hands, you showed that they alone were worthy to 
bear the sceptre ! In irons. Saint Louis was a king. 
Louis XVI. was a king on the scaffold ! . . . Next 
to the deicide committed by a reprobate people, the 
greatest crime that ever sullied the earth is regicide, 



SAINT-DENIS 175 



the outrage whose anniversary we this day deplore." 
And the priest went on to say : " You have not for- 
gotten these words of a dying king : ' I desire that 
my blood shall bring happiness to France.' Yes, 
princes, do not doubt it. That blood will save 
France, as the blood of Jesus Christ saved the 
world." 

The King's brother and the Dukes of Angoul^me 
and Berry descended into the vault where the 
remains of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were 
to repose forever. They prostrated themselves at 
the tomb of the martyrs, and, in the words of the 
Moniteur: "Their only regret in regard to the duties 
which called them to this mournful place is that all 
France could not have witnessed their profound 
veneration and their pious grief." The office for 
the dead put the royalists who were present into 
a sort of holy intoxication. The old Count of 
Suzannet, who had fought in the armies of Vendue, 
and was a faithful servant of the throne, was so 
affected by it that he had to be carried out of the 
church, and died a short time afterwards. 

"I will tell you," says Chateaubriand, "about the 
nightmare with which I was oppressed when, on the 
evening of the ceremony, I wandered through the 
half-deserted basilica. It may readily be understood 
that among these crumbling tombs I reflected on the 
vanity of human greatness, — such moralizing is com- 
mon enough and would have arisen from the spec- 
tacle itself, — but my mind did not stop there. I 



176 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

penetrated into the nature of mankind. Is all empty 
and forsaken in the place of the dead? Is there 
nothing in this nothingness? Does nothing exist 
where nothing is, and are there no thoughts in dust? 
Have bones no modes of life of which we are igno- 
rant? Who can tell the passions, the pleasures, the 
tender thoughts of the dead? All that they have 
dreamed, believed, hoped — have all things become 
but phantoms like them and, like them, been swal- 
lowed up in the abyss ? Dreams, hope, joy, sorrow, 
freedom, and slavery, strength and weakness, crime 
and virtue, honor and shame, wealth and penury, 
talents, genius,' intelligence, glory, illusions, loves, — 
are you but for a moment? Are you but fleeting 
sensations that are destroyed with the skulls in 
which they were engendered, with the lifeless breast 
where once beat a heart? . . . Let us close our 
eyes and fill the maddening abyss of life with these 
grand and mysterious words of the martyr : * I am 
a Christian.' " 

And yet, despite its majesty, this religious cere- 
mony did not disarm all regicidal hate. A sinister 
incident is mentioned as having taken place during 
the procession at a point on the way from the rue 
d'Anjou to Saint-Denis. 

The decorations of the funeral car having caught 
on a street lamp, several persons set up the regicidal 
cry, the cry of the most terrible days of the Revolu- 
tion : " To the lamp-post ! " " While Louis X YIIL," 
says M. Alfred Nettement, ^'was paying to the 



SAINT-DENIS 177 



memory of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette the 
tribute of mourning and just regret, and while by 
far the larger part of the public shared in these 
manifestations, the revolutionists were filled with 
indignation by them." Nothing is more sensitive 
than remorse. Those who had imbued their hands 
in the blood of the King and Queen looked upon the 
honors paid to their memory as an insult directed 
against the regicides. Instead of comparing the 
moderation of the restoration of the Bourbons with 
the bloody reprisals of the restoration of the Stuarts, 
these men were afflicted because regret was felt for 
those to whom they had shown no pity. 

Doubtless there was at that time considerable 
exaggeration in the zeal of the royalists. The 
funeral oration by the Abbe de Boulogne contained 
such violent anathemas against the Revolution that 
the ministry did not deem it advisable to let it be 
printed in the Moniteur. The newspapers, exulting 
over the circumstance, were too forgetful of the 
saintly words of Louis XVI.'s will : *' I recommend 
my son, if he shall have the misfortune to become 
King, to remember that he ought to devote himself 
entirely to the happiness of his fellow-citizens ; that 
he should forget all hatred and all resentment, and 
particularly everything that has any connection with 
the misfortunes and sorrows that I have endured." 
But, in spite of all, Madame de Stael was right in 
saying : " No one could see without emotion the 
obsequies of Louis XVI. The heart turned wholly 



178 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

to the sufferings of that Princess who went back to 
palaces, not to enjoy their splendor, but to honor the 
dead and to seek for their bloody remains. It has 
been said that that ceremony was impolitic, but it 
gave rise to so much affection that no blame should 
attach to it." No, the solemnities of the 21st of 
January, 1815, were not impolitic. They produced 
a deep impression on men of every party. For Louis 
XYIII. they were the accomplishment of an impera- 
tive duty, and for the Restoration they were a sacra- 
ment of piety and sorrow. 



XVII 

THE BEGINNING OF 1815 

THE lugubrious memories of the 21st of January 
did not prevent that month from being brilliant 
at court and in the salons of the Faubourg Saint- 
Germain. Receptions, fetes, and gala plays at the 
royal theatres were given both before and after that 
mournful anniversary. On the 10th of January, the 
King and royal family went to the Opera, where 
Castor et Pollux was rendered. In its report of 
the proceedings of that evening the Journal des 
Deiats said : " People waited impatiently for some 
happy allusion in the play, and were beginning to 
despair ; but at the end of the fourth act, in the only 
fine scene in the opera. Lays, in a deep and sonorous 
voice, pronounced these two lines : — 

" ' The universe demanded thy return ; 
Reign o'er a faithful people.' 

Never did electricity produce a swifter effect. The 
entire audience instantly sprang to its feet, turned to 
the King's box, and seemed to repeat affectionately 
the truth contained in the first line, and the senti- 
ment expressed in the second." 

179 



180 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Society was very animated in the Fanbourg Saint- 
Germain. The salons of the aristocracy regained 
their brilliancy. One would have thought that the 
days of the old regime had returned. Whoever, 
among persons of good standing at court, should 
have expressed the least doubt as to the stability of 
the royal edifice would have been treated as an 
alarmist and' poltroon. Perhaps he might even have 
been called a fool. All conversations in the fashion- 
able world were about trifles. Only balls and thea- 
tres were talked about. The Duke of Berry, with a 
surrounding of brilliant young people, received in his 
apartments at the Tuileries. The highest boon that 
could be received was an invitation to his parties. 
The Prince's first ball was given on the 12th of Jan- 
uary, and to it only four hundred and fifty guests 
were invited. 

On the 26th of January, there was a reception at 
the Tuileries. Next day the Debats ssiid: "At yes- 
terday's reception the King, with infinite grace, 
thanked Madame de Stael for having sent him M. 
Necker's defence of Louis XVI. He talked a long- 
time with the lady, which proves that Louis XVIII. 
is not afraid of intellectual women, and that, in his 
reign, — 

" ' One may be pure, although she be renowned.' " 

On the 30th of January, the King, his brother, 
and the Duchess of Angouleme were in their box 
at a play at the Theatre FrauQais. The pieces were 



THE BEGINNING OF 1815 181 

the Homme du Jour and the Partie de chasse de 
Henri IV. The galleries and balconies were occu- 
pied by elegantly dressed ladies. Everybody rose 
when the royal family entered. In the supper scene 
of the third act the health of King Henri is drunk, 
and when it was reached, the enthusiasm knew no 
bounds. The audience sang in chorus the refrain of 
the famous song : — 

" Vive Henri IV. Vive ce roi vaillant ! " 

The King and his family returned to the Tuileries 
by torch-light in a large open carriage. 

On the 2d of February, another ball was given by 
the Duke of Berry. The whole royal family was 
present. The King came at ten o'clock and did not 
withdraw till shortly before supper. As soon as the 
princes and princesses of the blood took their places 
at the banquet table, where also sat a hundred and 
fifty court ladies, the curtain, which concealed a 
small theatre prepared among the pillars, was raised ; 
artists from the Opdra-Comique were seen behind a 
gauze veil, which produced a charming effect; and 
the actors rendered a divertissement, the words of 
which were by Dupaty and the music by Boieldieu. 
Its title was the Troubadours voyageurs. Mademoi- 
selle Regnault, Madame Boulanger, and Madame 
Gavaudan took the parts of the damsels, and Baptiste 
played the troubadour. On the following day, the 
3d of February, the entire royal family attended a 
representation at the Theatre-Comique. 



182 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



The Duchess of Angoul^me was seen at theatres, 
but still oftener at the hospitals, where her benefi- 
cence was edifying. She visited the Salpetriere on 
the 7th of January, the Orphans' Hospital of the 
Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the 13th, and the H8tel- 
Dieu on the 28th. 

On the 7th of February, there was a family supper 
at court, and afterwards a dramatic representation in 
the Gallery of Diana. Actors from the Theatre des 
Vari^t^s played before the sovereign. 

Everybody about the King was filled with opti- 
mism. Intelligence from abroad was completely sat- 
isfactory. At the Congress of Vienna, France secured 
an amount of moral force which it would have been 
hard to expect a few weeks before. Marshal Soult, 
who was steadily growing in favor, said that he could 
rely on the army. Besides this, the body-guards 
and the officers of the King's military household 
never ceased to repeat that with nothing but their 
fencing-foils they could easily parley with Bona- 
partist sabres and bayonets. No one regarded as 
serious the opposition of the JValn Jaune^ a satirical 
journal that was published every five days, and with 
which the King himself was the first to be amused. 
This little sheet, moreover, never spoke of Louis 
XVIII. save with the utmost respect. It called him 
only Louis the Desired, and never was weary of 
praising the Charter. The N'ain Jaune was, there- 
fore, permitted to create its imaginary order of the 
" Extinguisher," in which it made merry with a cer- 



THE BEGINNING OF 1815 183 

tain M. de la Jobarcliere, the type of an incorrigible 
old emigre^ whom it maliciously invented. The 
whole court laughed at this and quoted the words of 
Beaumarchais : "It is only little men who are sus- 
picious of little writers." Begone, dull care ! There 
is nothing to worry about ! What object is there in 
bothering over the little King of Elba ? Is not the 
Anglo-French fleet that keeps watch over that rock a 
guarantee more than sufficient ? Isn't it better worth 
while to be interested in the Italian troupe which 
will presently appear at the Hall Favart under the 
direction and with the assistance of Madame Cata- 
lan!? 

Nevertheless, the calm was a deceptive one. Pas- 
sions that seemed to have died out were more alive 
than ever. The disquietude of those who had 
seized the national property increased every day. 
So great was the confidence of many old emigres 
in an approaching restitution of what belonged to 
them, that, though some accepted offers of compro- 
mise that were made to them through fear, others 
utterly refused to do so in any shape or form. The 
story of a priest is told, who said from the pulpit 
that those who held national property and refused 
to restore it, would suffer the fate of Jezebel and 
be devoured by dogs. The Journal royal said that 
an old chevalier of Saint Louis, who had had the bad 
luck to purchase some landed property once owned 
by emigres^ returned it to its rightful owners before 
replacing on his breast a mark of honor that could 



184 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

not be reconciled with the seizure of Naboth's field. 
Alexandre de Puymaigre, a contemporary witness, 
said: "The more the royal machine went ahead, 
the more it went astray in the labyrinth of preten- 
sions put forward by the two regimes and the em- 
barrassments occasioned them by exasperated enemies 
and imprudent friends. So far from the parties 
becoming reconciled to each other, they turned the 
theatres, restaurants, promenades, and all public 
places into arenas where they showed their mutual 
antipathy in acts, sarcasm, and base caricatures." 

The parlors of Queen Ilortense became a hotbed 
of the Bonapartist opposition. True, the former 
Queen of Holland permitted herself to show no 
hostility to Louis XVIII., who had made her Duchess 
of Saint-Leu. She had audience of the King and 
was received most graciously. Encouraged by the 
quiet attitude of the Tuileries toward them, the old 
partisans of Napoleon began to raise their heads 
once more. As yet their hopes were only vague, 
but they hoped. All intelligent observers saw that 
the Bourbons had everything to fear from the army. 
" Most of the regiments," says M. de Puymaigre, 
"retained their love for the Emperor and their 
hatred of the Bourbons. I recollect that once while 
I was staying at the Hotel de I'Ecu, at Montlu^on, 
I found the host much scandalized at the conduct 
of a colonel of hussars whose regiment had spent 
the previous day in the village. "Your dinner is 
dear," said the colonel to him. " Is it because meat 



THE BEGINNING OF 18 IS 185 

costs a great deal here ? It is cheap in Paris ; you 
have a big pig for a napoleon." All these symp- 
toms of what was coming, and which could not 
escape the least observant eye, were despised by an 
incapable ministry, and all Paris knew that a return 
of the violet was expected (the violet was already 
the Bonapartist emblem, and the soldiers called Na- 
poleon, Father Violet), and yet these sorry deposi- 
taries of power did not take the slightest precautions. 
A proof that the court felt perfectly secure is 
that at the close of February, five days before the 
Emperor landed, the Duchess of Angouleme, who 
certainly would not have quitted Paris had she 
thought that the throne of her uncle there was in 
the least danger, went to Bordeaux to celebrate the 
anniversary of the 12th of March, 1814, the day on 
which the Duke made his formal entrance into the 
city, and inaugurated the reign of Louis XYIII. 
The journey of the Duke and Duchess was one long 
ovation. General Decaen, commander of the 11th 
Military Division, — the same man who was to 
unfurl the tricolor a few days afterwards, — an- 
nounced their coming arrival in an order of the day 
in which he told his troops : " It will be very pleas- 
ant for the garrison of Bordeaux to mingle in the 
expression of public joy on that occasion, the expres- 
sion of the love and devotion it feels for the worthy 
scions of the best kings of v/hom France can boast." 
The Duke and Duchess left Paris on the 27th of 
February, 1815. They slept at Orleans on the 27th, 



186 THE DUCHESS OF ANQOULJ^ME 

at Bourges on the 28th, at Issoudun on the 1st of 
March, and at Limoges on the 3d. Everywhere 
they passed under triumphal arches and amid ap- 
plause. 

All Bordeaux was stirring on the 5th of March. 
It flocked to the banks of the Gironde, at which the 
Princess and her husband were to land. Louis XVI.'s 
daughter had never visited this royalist city, and she 
was awaited with mingled feelings of curiosity and 
veneration. At one o'clock in the afternoon the beau- 
tiful gondola of the Duke and Duchess appeared. 
It was preceded and followed by a great number 
of boats handsomely decorated with white flags. 
At the moment when the daughter and the nephew 
of Louis XVI. left their craft to take carriage, 
twenty young men and the same number of young 
girls dressed in white attached themselves to the 
carriage and proceeded to draw it. The streets 
were strewn with verdure, and the houses hung 
with tapestry, while flowers were scattered profusely 
along the path of the triumphal procession. When 
it paused for an instant at the Place de la Comedie, 
a band of musicians, placed in the gallery surmount- 
ing the peristyle of the Grand Theatre, rendered 
the famous chorus from the Iphigenie : — 

*' Let us sing and celebrate our queen," — 

a chorus of which Marie Antoinette was very 
fond and which had very often been sung in her 
honor. 



THE BEGINNING OF 1815 187 

The 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th of March were devoted 
to fetes, spectacles, and public rejoicings. The mul- 
titude could not tire of the pleasure of looking upon 
the face of the orphan of the Temple. On the 9th 
of March, the Princess and her husband attended a 
ball given to them by the local merchants. The 
whole city was in the midst of rejoicings when, in 
the afternoon, a courier arrived from Paris with de- 
spatches for the Duke of Angouleme. These de- 
spatches announced the landing of Napoleon, and 
ordered the Duke to go to Nimes at once, and there, 
as lieutenant-general of the kingdom for the depart- 
ment of the south, take command of the five southern 
military divisions. 

The first words spoken by the Duchess of Angou- 
leme when her husband told her the purport of the 
despatches were : " O, that this strife may not cost 
rivers of French blood ! " However, the inhabitants 
of Bordeaux did not at once hear the startling news. 
In order not to disturb the festivities of the eveniiig, 
the Prince and Princess decided to divulge nothing 
till the next day. In the evening they went to the 
ball, which was splendid, and betrayed in their affa- 
ble and calm faces no trace of the thoughts that 
occupied their minds. At five o'clock in the morn- 
ing, when the ball was hardly over, the Duke of 
Angouleme left his wife at Bordeaux, entered a post- 
chaise with an aide-de-camp, and set out for Nimes 
in all haste. 



XVIII 

THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON 

FOR several weeks there had been, as the saying 
is, "something in the air" at Paris. The atti- 
tude of the troops was disquieting. There were deep 
mutterings in their ranks. Cries of "Long live the 
Emperor ! " had more than once been heard, and on 
parade when the soldiers cried " Long live the King ! " 
they added under their breath, " of Rome." Carica- 
tures, the clandestine sale of which constantly 
increased, represented the eagles flying in through 
the windows of the Tuileries, while flocks of geese 
went out through the doors. A few far-seeing roy- 
alists had vague presentiments of evil. " A constant 
dread," says Madame de Stael, " held possession of 
my mind for some weeks before the landing of Bona- 
parte. In the evening, when the fine buildings of 
the city were lighted by the moon's rays, it seemed 
as though my happiness and that of France were 
like a sick friend whose smile is sweeter as the time 
of separation draws near." The ministers were in 
that state of optimistic tranquillity which always pre- 
cedes the downfall of a government. "It is well 
known," says Count de Puymaigre in his Souvenirs^ 
188 



THE BETUBN OF NAPOLEON 189 

that " the Abbe de Montesquiou, Mmister of the Inte- 
rior, left unopened on his table despatches from M. de 
Bouthilier, prefect of Var, in which, fifteen days 
before the event, intelligence of the projects of the 
man from Elba was contained, and that the minister 
treated with similar indifference despatches which 
had been sent to him on the same subject by Gen- 
eral Bruslart, commandant in Corsica." 

No one at the Tuileries even dreamed of the danger 
when, about two in the afternoon of the 5th of 
March, M. de VitroUes, Minister of State, who had 
the control of the telegraph system, sent Louis XYIII. 
a sealed envelope addressed to the sovereign. This 
envelope contained a copy of a telegraphic despatch 
received at Lyons, and which M. de Yitrolles had 
not yet read. The King opened the envelope and, 
after glancing at its contents, said : " Do you know 
what this is?"— "No, Sire!" ''It says that Bona- 
parte has landed on the coast of Provence." Then 
he added calmly : " This must be taken to the Min- 
ister of War, who will see what is to be done about 
it." At this time the southern telegraph line did 
not extend beyond Lyons. Napoleon landed near 
Cannes, on the Gulf of Juan, on the 1st of March, 
and it was not till the 5th that General Brayer, 
commandant of the military division of Lyons, tele- 
graphed to the government the important news which 
he had received by courier from Marshal Massena, 
governor of Marseilles. 

General Brayer's despatch read as follows : " On 



190 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULMiE 

the 1st of March, Bonaparte landed near Cannes, in 
the department of Var, with twelve hundred men 
and four cannon, and went on towards Digne and 
Gap, apparently on the way to Grenoble. Every 
means has been taken to arrest and thwart this mad 
undertaking. All things show the best disposition 
in the southern departments. Public tranquillity is 
assured." Louis XVIII. decided to keep the news 
secret for some time, and the Parisians learned it 
first from the Moniteur of the 7th of March. 

Nevertheless some indiscreet acts were committed, 
and by the 6tli the news began to circulate, to the 
great joy of some and the consternation of others. 

Let us hear what Madame de Stael says : " Never 
shall I forget the moment when, on the 6th of March, 
1815, I learned from one of my friends that Bona- 
parte had landed on the coast of France. I at once 
foresaw with sorrow the consequences of that event 
just as they afterwards turned out to be, and I felt as 
if the earth was opening to swallow me up. ... I 
said to M. de Lavelette, whom I met shortly after 
hearing the news : ' Liberty is over if Bonaparte 
triumphs, and national independence is ended if he 
is defeated.' " 

Louis XVIII. decided that his brother should go 
at once to Lyons and take command of the troops 
intended to stop the march of the invader. The 
King summoned the Duke of Orleans, and directed 
him to follow the heir apparent to Lyons and place 
himself under his orders. This rSle was by no means 



THE BETURN OF NAPOLEON 191 

pleasing to the Duke, but Louis XVIII. dryly gave 
him to understand that he must obey. In announc- 
ing the departure of Monsieur the Moniteur of the 
7th of March published a decree, in which the King 
called for an immediate session of the Chambers, 
together with a royal proclamation, declaring Bona- 
parte a rebel and a traitor. 

Although intelligent royalists comprehended the 
extreme gravity of the situation, inconsiderate royal- 
ists felt or pretended to feel quite joyous. " So much 
the better ! " they exclaimed. " The bandit has laid 
a trap for himself, into which he will fall. He will 
be hounded like a deer. He will be shot like a dog. 
He will be harried." To harry (^courir sus) was an 
expression used in the royal proclamation. Chateau- 
briand himself grows merry over this archaic phrase. 
He says : " The chief measure employed against 
Bonaparte was an order that he be harried. Louis 
XV HI., the legless, running down and harrying the 
conqueror who bestrode the earth ! The revival of 
this antique legal formula on such an occasion is 
enough to show the perspicacity of the statesmen at 
that epoch. Harrying in 1815 ! Harry whom? Harry 
a wolf ? Harry the captain of a band of brigands ? 
Harry a robber baron ? No ; harry Napoleon, who 
had harried, caught them, and branded them forever 
on the shoulder with his ineradicable N." 

However, Louis XVIII. affected an imperturbable 
calmness. In spite of an attack of the gout, he re- 
ceived all the ambassadors on the 7th of March. 



192 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

" Gentlemen," said he, " you see me in pain ; but do 
not deceive yourselves ; its cause is not anxiety but 
the gout. Reassure your sovereigns about what is 
going on in France. The j)eace of Europe will be 
disturbed no more than that of my kingdom." 

On the 8th of March the Journal des Dehats said : 
" Certain shady practices, and certain manoeuvres in 
Italy, which were incited by his stupid brother-in-law, 
have puffed up the pride of the cowardly warrior of 
Fontainebleau. He runs a chance of dying the 
death of a hero, but God will let him die the death 
of a traitor. The land of France has cast him out ; 
he returns to it, and the land of France will be his 
grave. On what friends can he rely? On the 
fathers and brothers of the thousands whom he 
drove before him on his distant and barbarous ex- 
peditions? On the magistrates whom he outraged, 
the judges whom he insulted in their own courts? 
On which of his old partisans? On the generals, 
whose glory he labored so hard to obscure, in order 
that all of which he had robbed them might make 
his own glory shine more brightly, the generals 
whom he released from their vows, and who will 
so much the better keep those which they have taken 
since then ? " 

On the same day, the 8th of March, 1815, Marshal 
Soult, the Minister of War, addressed an order of the 
day to the army, in which he — he who a few weeks 
afterwards was to be the Emperor's major-general at 
Waterloo, said : " Soldiers, the man who but recently 



THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON 193 

and before the eyes of all Europe abdicated the 
power he had usurped, and of which he made such 
desperate use, Bonaparte, has landed on French soil, 
which he had no claims to see again. What does he 
want ? Civil war. Where does he look for it ? 
Among traitors. Where does he expect to find it? 
Among those soldiers whom he has so often deceived 
by practising on their bravery. Will it be made in 
the name of those families which his name alone still 
fills with dread? Bonaparte has contempt enough 
for us to think that we will abandon a legitimate 
and well-loved sovereign to share the fate of a mere 
adventurer. He believes this, the insensate man, 
and his latest mad act shows that he believes it. 
Soldiers, the French army is the bravest army in 
Europe ! It will prove itself the most faithful." 

On the 9th of March, Louis XVIIL, seated on 
one of the balconies of the Tuileries, saw the Paris 
garrison and the national guard defile in the court- 
yard. They cheered lustily. Of their own accord 
the regiments of the line waved their shakos from 
the points of their bayonets, and cried : " Long live 
the King ! " " To see the enthusiasm," says Count 
de Puymaigre, who was present at the review, " one 
would have believed that Bonaparte, with his twelve 
hundred men, could not fail to be crushed at once; 
but some of the soldiers were traitors at heart, others 
were bewildered, and most were awaiting events. 

" On leaving the Tuileries, where all were waver- 
ing between hope and fear, I went, in order to assure 



194 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULMiE 

myself of the real disposition of the army, to visit 
one of my old acquaintances, Lieutenant-General 
Domon, of the hussars, who was chief equerry to the 
King, and who is now dead. There were several 
colonels at his house, and while breakfasting with 
them I saw that, mistaking me for one of their party 
on account of my age, bearing, and the simple red 
ribbon at my buttonhole, they cast off restraint and 
showed that every one of them had wished for Na- 
poleon's return." 

Having explained the situation, M. de Puymaigre 
goes on to say : " One of them especially. Colonel 

G , made me indignant by the irony with which 

he gave an account of a visit he had paid to the 
Duke of Berry, and in which he had sworn that 
his devotion would be found equal to every proof. 
Upon leaving, I said to General Domon, who had not 
displayed similar duplicity : ' The business is settled ; 
your army will go over to the enemy.' " 

At the same time, the newspapers went into fren- 
zies of rage in their diatribes against Napoleon. 
They could not find words bad enough to express 
their feelings. They called him the Brigand of Elba, 
the Corsican Ogre, the Modern Teutates. The na- 
tional guard of the Paris garrison held a review on 
the 9th of March, and on that day the Dehats pub- 
lished an article in which the following words were 
used: ''Here we have the poltroon of 1814 entering 
on the absurdest as well as the rashest enterprise 
that was ever conceived of. He lands, and the gates 



THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON 195 

of the cities which he supposed would open to him 
remain closed; the soldiers who were to call him 
emperor again, respond to the cries of rebels only by 
shouting, ' Long live the King ! ' The peasants rush 
to arms and everywhere assail the bandits who come 
to ravage their peaceful fields. The great man, who 
is strong only when borne along by prosperous winds, 
is doubtless troubled and repentant, but what will he 
do ? He will endeavor to do what he did in Egypt, 
what he did in Russia, what he did in Saxony ; he 
will abandon the eight hundred unhappy men whom 
he has dragged to the field of carnage and — to use 
an expression peculiar to his bulletins of old — he 
will save himself 'personally,' without regard to the 
fate of his comrades in arms. May Providence, 
weary of his crimes, now upset his rascally calcula- 
tions ! " 

It is said that on the same day, the 9th of March 
namely, no one learned anything by the Lyons 
telegraph, because a thick fog prevented what it 
announced from being read. The darkness was a 
presage of evil. In the evening, Madame de Stael 
went to the Tuileries to pay her respects to Louis 
XVIII. " It seemed to me," says she, " that an ex- 
pression showing that he was ill at ease shone 
through his appearance of courage. While leaving 
the Tuileries, I saw the still unobliterated eagles on 
the walls of Napoleon's apartments, and they seemed 
to me to have become threatening again. At a 
reception in the evening, a young lady who, with 



196 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULkME 

many others, contributed to the spirit of frivolity 
which they wished to oppose to that of faction, 
as if the two could contend with each other, 
approached me and made some pleasantries on the 
anxiety that I could not conceal. ' What ! Madame,' 
said she, ' can you fear that the French will not fight 
for their lawful King against a usurper ? ' How 
could one reply to so well-turned a phrase without 
committing one's self ? But, after twenty-five years of 
revolution, had one a right to flatter one's self that a 
respectable but abstract idea like legitimacy would 
have more influence with the soldiers than all the 
memories of their long wars ? " Some of the royal- 
ists were infatuated enough to rejoice over the return 
from Elba. " That event," adds Madame de Stael, 
" must have seemed to them the most fortunate that 
could have occurred, because Bonaparte would be 
got rid of, and the two Chambers would see the 
necessity of giving the King absolute power, — as if 
that would be tolerated ! I am not sure that some of 
the enemies of any constitution whatever were not 
glad of disturbances which might bring foreigners 
into France and impel them to impose an absolute 
government on the country." 

On the 10th of March, the royalists continued to 
cherish their illusions. The morning's Moniteur con- 
tained this reassuring paragraph : " A telegraphic 
despatch announces the arrival of Monsieur at Lyons 
at ten o'clock on the morning of the 8th, in perfect 
health. His Royal Highness found the troops and 



THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON 197 

inhabitants united in a common feeling of devotion 
and fidelity, of which he received the most striking 
evidences." On the very day when the news of this 
good reception was circulating in the capital and 
reviving the hopes of royalists, the King's brother 
and the Duke of Orleans left Lyons and returned 
post-haste to Paris, being intimidated by the hostile 
attitude of the troops. 

Nevertheless, it was still imagined that Marshal 
Ney would arrest the progress of Napoleon. Louis 
XVIIL issued the following royal proclamation : 
" Given at the chateau of the Tuileries, March 11, 
1815. — Measures have been taken to stop the enemy 
between Lyons and Paris. We have ample means of 
accomplishing this, if the nation will oppose to him 
the insuperable obstacle of its devotion and courage. 
France will not be defeated in this struggle between 
freedom and tyranny, between Louis XVIIL and 
Bonaparte." Companies of royal volunteers were 
organized at Paris. In their ranks were M. Odilon 
Barrot, many students at the Medical School, and all 
of those at the Law School. Loyal addresses were 
sent to the King from all parts of the kingdom. 
Every functionary, militarj^ or civil, rushed headlong 
into adulatory declamation. The only Bonapartist 
journal of the day, the Naioi Jau7ie, which was more 
and more closely watched by the censorship, said 
that Napoleon, after having dragged out the last 
fragments of a dishonored life on the rocks of the 
island of Elba, would be driven from France with 



198 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUhtME 

horror. But approaching retractions were already 
showing themselves under the semblance of enthusi- 
asm and devotion. 

Society in the Faubourg Saint-Germain passed 
from ridiculous infatuation to morbid alarm. The 
news of the occupation of Lyons by the Emperor 
and the abrupt return of Monsieur and the Duke of 
Orleans to Paris put a stop to boastings. A night- 
mare seemed to oppress all. Every week, every min- 
ute, had its new impressions. The women were more 
over-excited and violent than the men. There was 
general confusion and disorder. Marshal Ney was 
no longer expected to keep his alleged promise to 
the King, and bring the usurper back in an iron 
cage. On the 14th of March, the Abbe Montesquiou, 
Minister of the Interior, affirmed in the Chamber of 
Deputies that, being satisfied with the excellent dis- 
position of the troops, the Marshal had advanced 
from Franche-Comte on the road to Lyons, there to 
meet the enemy. It was related on the same day 
that several foreign ministers had said to the King : 
" Sire, we will not disguise from Your Majesty that 
we have informed our courts of what is going on in 
France, and that if this state of things continues, 
their answer will be the entry of the troops of our 
sovereigns into France." The Journal des Debats 
added this comment : " And, Frenchmen ! behold in 
this the benefits bestowed on us by Bonaparte, — a 
foreign war that may bring the Cossacks once again 
to the gates of Paris." Alas I this prediction was 
only too true ! 



THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON 199 

On the next day, the 15th of March, the same 
journal which had now worked itself up to a 
paroxysm of fury, said : " What does this man 
demand ? A throne, the throne of France. What 
is he ? We do not speak of his former deeds of 
madness, — he is a foreigner ! And should not that 
word alone suffice to rally all the sons of France 
against him ? We all rejoiced at the return of the 
Bourbons, and under them we recovered what we had 
so long sought, — work and freedom. But even if 
the Bourbons had betrayed all our hopes, even if 
the crown were at disposal, by what right and under 
what pretext could it be snatched by this foreigner ? 
The lowest of our soldiers, the most obscure of our 
peasants, provided he were a Frenchman, would 
have a better right to it than this son of a bourgeois 
of Ajaccio." 

And the sheet that was once called the Journal de 
r Umpire added : " Hear the general shouts of confi- 
dence and joy inspired among the people by the 
wisdom of its government and the fidelity of its 
defenders, ' He shall not return ! ' It is the burden 
of all we say, the refrain of all we talk about. . . . 
And why should he return to Paris? He was 
driven from it by justice, by force of arms, and, 
above all, by Providence. He was driven from it 
by his own remembrances, by a power invisible to 
all but him, and which acted on him alone. Like 
the Richard III. of the English poet, and like him 
tormented on the eve of battle by the shades of his 



200 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

victims, he sees from afar his progress opposed by 
the ghosts of four millions of men immolated to 
enhance his fatal glory, and hears them cry in a 
dreadful voice, ' Scourge of the Generations, thou 
shalt reign no more ! ' " And yet this " Scourge 
of the Generations " had already begun to reign. 
Within five days he ascended the grand staircase of 
the Tuileries, and on the next day the Dehats 
resumed its old name of the Journal de V Empire. 

Listen to an eye-witness, the late Duke of Broglie. 
In his carefully compiled Souvenirs he says : " Both 
government and society were a sorry sight. False 
news came in in double quantity, but nobody put the 
least faith in it. They waxed hot with declamations 
which were taken at their true value. They made 
preparations for resistance, in the firm resolve not to 
withstand the first attack. They swore hatred to 
the tyrant while they were underhandedly making 
ready to be well received by him when the right 
moment came. Forbin trailed his big sword in the 
parlors of Madame Recamier, Benjamin Constant 
brandished the article which, unluckily for him, he 
had inserted in the Journal des Debats, and as they 
did so both these gentlemen were more concerned 
about the impression they were making on the mis- 
tress of the house than on anything else in the 
world. A few people made their way to the Tui- 
leries and, while shouting ' Long live the King ! ' were 
waiting expectantly, to change that cry to 'Long live 
the Emperor I ' The two Chambers felt themselves 



THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON 201 

quite as truly dethroned as royalty was. Their secret 
committees were unmasked like the councils of the 
princes, and their halls became caf^s to which people 
came to hear the news." The moment was drawing 
nigh when Napoleon should say to M. Mollien : 
" They have let me come as they let the others go." 
The Duke of Broglie will repeat the famous words 
of Cromwell, when, hearing the enthusiastic shouts 
of those around him, the Protector said to Shurloe : 
" These people would shout still louder and more 
joyfully if they saw me going to be hanged." 



XIX 

THE EOYAL ASSEMBLAGE 

THE death agony of the first Restoration had 
begun. Louis XVIII. endeavored at least 
to fall nobly, and like a king who yet hoped to come 
back presently to his own. He desired to give 
royalty a splendid burial ; there was real majesty in 
the solemnities of the 16th of March when the 
Chambers met at the Palais Bourbon, and the speech 
from the tlirone was like a funeral oration of the 
monarchy pronounced by the King himself in the 
idea that the monarchy would be restored to life. 

At tliree o'clock Louis XVIII. set out from the 
Tuileries with a large number of attendants. On 
the way from the chateau to the Palais Bourbon the 
national guard was enthusiastic. The regulars kept 
silence. But the King paid no attention to this 
silence. He went over in his mind the discourse 
that he wished to recite by heart. The floor and 
galleries were filled with a throng composed entirely 
of royalists. The Chamber of Peers occupied one 
half of the semicircle and the Chamber of Deputies 
the other half. The staff of the 1st Military Divis- 
ion and that of the national guard occupied benches 
202 



THE ROYAL ASSEMBLAGE 208 

placed beside the throne. The body-guards were 
stationed in the hall along with the national guard 
and troops of the line. 

When the King appeared, he was greeted with 
loud and unanimous applause. His face was sorrow- 
ful but calm. He wore for the first time the star of 
the Legion of Honor. After sloAvly ascending the 
steps to the throne, at the foot of which stood the 
princes, the marshals, and the captains of the body- 
guard, he sat down, and his look, as he bowed 
majestically to the assembly, showed that he was 
about to speak. Then, amid a profound and even 
religious silence, he began his pathetic address in a 
deep and sonorous voice: "Gentlemen," said he, 
"at this critical moment when the public enemy 
occupies part of my kingdom and menaces the liberty 
of all the rest, I come to you in the desire of strength- 
ening the ties which, by binding you and me, fortify 
the State. In addressing you, I desire to show all 
France what are my sentiments and my desires. I 
have returned to my country; I have reconciled it 
with foreign powers which will undoubtedly remain 
faithful to the treaties which have restored us to 
peace ; I have labored for the welfare of my people ; 
I have received, I every day receive, most affecting 
evidences of their love : how could I, at the age of 
sixty years, better end my existence than by dying 
in their defence ? " 

The King uttered this phrase simply and with 
emotion. It produced an immense effect. Every- 



204 THE BITCHES S OF ANGOULEME 

body was moved. The royal orator then continued : 
"I fear nothing for myself, but I fear for France. 
He who comes to light the torch of civil war among 
us brings also the plague of foreign war; he would 
place our country once more under his iron yoke and 
will finally destroy that Constitutional Charter that 
I have given you, — my fairest title to future fame, 
— the Charter which all Frenchmen hold dear and 
which I have sworn to maintain." Here the en- 
thusiasm of the liberal royalists knew no bounds. 
Nothing was more imposing in their eyes than the 
solemn oath the King had taken to abide by the 
Charter. "Let us rally around it I " said he in con- 
clusion. "Let it be our blest standard! The 
descendants of Henri IV. will be the first to stand to 
it, and all good Frenchmen will come to their side. 
In conclusion, gentlemen, may the meeting of the 
two Chambers give to authority the power it requires, 
and may this truly national war prove by its happy 
issue what can be done by a great peo23le united 
through love of its King and the fundamental law of 
the State." 

At the very moment when Louis XVIII. uttered 
the concluding sentence of his address, a darkness 
fell upon the hall. All present looked up to dis- 
cover the cause of this sudden night. The sky was 
growing black as if in sympathy with the gloom of 
the situation and in mourning for royalty. One 
might have imagined himself in a vast and sombre 
church, and darkness lent yet more solemnity to the 



THE ROYAL ASSEMBLAGE 205 

ceremony. When the King ceased, the whole assem- 
bly, as if electrified, sprang to their feet and, 
extending their hands towards the throne, cried out : 
"Long live the King! Let us die for the King! 
Living or dying, we are the King's ! " 

Monsieur then approached his brother, and all 
became respectfully silent as he signified that he 
was about to speak. "Sire," said the Prince, "I 
know that I am now violating common rules by 
addressing Your Majesty, but I implore you to 
excuse me for expressing at this juncture, on behalf 
of myself and my family, how thoroughly and from 
the bottom of our hearts we share the feelings and 
principles that animate Your Majesty." Then, 
raising his hand, he added: "We swear by our 
honor to live and die true to the King and to the 
Constitutional Charter, which secures the happiness 
of the French!" Then Louis XYIIL extended his 
hand to Monsieur, who seized and kissed it in a 
transport of enthusiasm. The emotion of the audi- 
ence, which had constantly increased, reached its 
height when the sovereign, yielding to the general 
impulse, pressed Monsieur to his heart with all the 
dignity of a king and all the tenderness of a 
brother. The Moniteur says : " In a single day the 
destiny of France would be secured and the King, 
the country, our most inviolable laws, and our 
dearest rights would be guaranteed forever, if all 
France could have witnessed that ^cene. But in 
effect it was present in its representatives, in its 



206 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

most illustrious military leaders, and a host of citi- 
zens impartially admitted to the body of the house, 
in the soldiers and civilians who were crowded in 
the hall and outside the walls, and who tumultuously 
re-echoed the shouts, the vows, and the applause of 
the Assembly." 

This solemnity roused the imaginations of the 
royalists and deeply stirred their hearts. At the 
close of the day long files of men of all classes, and 
carrying white flags, went through the streets laud- 
ing Louis XYIII. and heaping maledictions on 
Napoleon. "Long live the King!" they cried, 
" Down with the tyrant ! " 

On the same day the following appeared in the 
DShats : " I swear by France prosperous and happy 
that the fugitive from the island of Elba shall never 
again see the walls of Paris. We brave soldiers 
whom he has insulted by counting on our aid, we 
soldiers together with our fellow-citizens, will save 
France, liberty, and the King. Till Lyons, all was 
unforeseen; after Lyons, all shall be one intrepid 
defence. What shall we see when we meet the 
enemy ? On the one side will be found the sons of 
France and the blood royal, all those faithful and 
illustrious generals at the head of their brave sol- 
diers, fighting for country, freedom, and king; on 
the other, a fallen emperor invoking oatlis which he 
himself has broken, and a few disheartened bands 
that hardly deserve to be compared with those com- 
panies which appeared in the fourteenth century and 



THE ROYAL ASSEMBLAGE 207 

were known as 'sons of Belial,' — soldiers from 
many lands, without title and without name." 

The bands which excited the ironical disdain 
of the royalistic journals approached. They ap- 
proached, and the terror they inspired was such 
that the throne crumbled before even their trumpet 
blasts could be heard. A few hours after the royal 
stance it became known that Marshal Ney had gone 
over to the enemy on the 4th of March at Lons-le- 
Saulnier. Thus vanished royalty's last hope. It 
might be said that it already heard Napoleon's foot- 
steps from afar. 



XX 

THE king's departure • 

THE situation became more desperate every hour. 
One man tried to deceive another or endeav- 
ored to deceive himself, and people longed for the 
ability to shut their eyes to evidence. It was known 
what would be the outcome of all the mouthings of 
a few days before — of all those pompous and sound- 
ing phrases about the fidelity of the army and the 
stability of the throne. The time for heroic reme- 
dies had come. 

Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, said to the 
King : " I am a man of business and, if full power 
is given to me, I will pledge myself and with noth- ' 
ing more than the resources now in Paris, to put 
the Tuileries and the Louvre into such a state of 
defence that it will require a breaching battery to 
enter it; and this I will do within five days. Pro- 
visions for three thousand men for two months must 
be placed in the chateau. The household of the 
King will be excellent for this purpose, without 
drawing on the provinces for their services. It js 
composed of men of courage, each of whom will be 
solicitors of the honor of taking part in the defence. 
208 



THE KING'S DEPARTURE 209 

The King must sliut himself up in a fortress of that 
sort, together with all that constitutes the imposing- 
ness of government, — ministers, both Chambers, 
and all except his family. A resolution so magnani- 
mous will react most powerfully on the troops. Do 
you know the state of opinion in three-quarters of 
France? Except in the eastern departments and a 
few scattered malecontents, it is everywhere in our 
favor. In the west, in Normandy, Picardy, and 
Flanders, the masses are wholly devoted to you. 
The national guards are for you. Give them time 
to get in motion; they will not be needed in your 
behalf for three months yet. . . . Sire, I claim the 
honor of being shut in with Your Majesty, as com- 
mander or common soldier, I care not in what 
capacity." 

M. de Chateaubriand was of Marshal Marmont's 
opinion: "I said," is his story, "let us barri- 
cade ourselves in Paris. National guards from the 
department are already coming to our aid. While 
this is going on, our aged monarch, under the pro- 
tection of Louis XVI. 's will and with the Charter 
in his hand, will remain peacefully seated on the 
throne at the Tuileries; the diplomatic corps will 
be around him, both Chambers will meet in the 
pavilions of the chateau, and the King's household 
will camp on the Carrousel and in the gardens of 
the Tuileries. We will line the quays and the ter- 
race overlooking the water with cannon. Let Bona- 
parte attack us in such a position; let him carry 



210 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

our barricades one after another; let liim bombard 
Paris if he chooses and if he has any mortars; let 
him make himself detested by the whole population, 
and we shall soon see what will be the result of his 
undertaking. If we hold out for only three days, 
the victory is ours. The King defending himself 
in his castle will cause universal enthusiasm. In a 
word, if he is to die, let him die worthy of his 
blood, and let Napoleon's last exploit be the 
butchery of an aged man. By sacrificing his life, 
Louis XVIII. will win the only battle he will have 
fought, and he will win it to the gain of the freedom 
of the human race." 

For one moment the monarch was wise enough to 
take or seem to take the advice of persons who begged 
him not to run away. He said in the council of his 
ministers on the 18th of March : " I shall remain at 
the Tuileries ; I will face the pretender who would 
seat himself on my throne. ... I will always count 
on my people after the reception they gave me." 
But reflection soon threw cold water on this fine fire. 
It must be acknowledged that the heroic counsel of 
those who favored resistance was not very practi- 
cal, and it is more than likely that if Louis XVIII. 
had followed it he would shortly have become Napo- 
leon's prisoner. That exceptionally bold man, the 
almost foolhardy Baron de Vitrolles himself, told 
his ministerial colleagues : " Bonaparte will capture 
the rest of Paris and then capture the King shut up 
in the Tuileries; once master of the whole capital 



THE KING'S DEPARTURE 211 

and the whole of France, he will wait for the King 
to surrender at discretion when the chateau's pro- 
visions give out." The notion of falling alive into 
the hands of the murderer of the Duke of Enghien 
was not very pleasing to the sagacious monarch, 
who had no wish to enter upon the captivity to 
which his unfortunate brother Louis XVI. had been 
subjected. Besides this, the scheme of the man 
who caused the defection at Essonnes probably made 
him cautious. Fifteen years later it would hardly do 
to employ the marshal in the defence of the Louvre 
and the Tuileries. 

Louis XVIII. refused to adopt the project of 
turning the chateau into a fortress. To judge from 
the MSmoires d^ Outre-Tomhe, Chateaubriand was in- 
consolable at this refusal. " What could have been 
finer," says he, "than for an aged son of Saint Louis 
to overthrow, in a few moments, a man whom it had 
taken the combined kings of Europe so many years 
to put down? If my plan had been adopted, for- 
eigners would not have ravaged France over again ; 
our princes would not have returned through the aid 
of armed foreigners; legitimacy would have been 
saved by itself. After success there would have 
been only one thing to fear, — an overweening confi- 
dence in its own power on the part of royalty, 
and consequent attempts against the rights of the 
nation." 

And this really singular royalist, who was always 
contented with himself and discontented with 



212 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

others, and who, in his Memoirs always seems 
to be vindicating his opinions to posterity, adds 
bitterly : " Why was I born at an epoch so unfit for 
me ? Why was I a royalist against my own instinct 
at a time when a wretched set at court could neither 
hear nor understand me? Why was I thrown into 
that herd of commonplace men who took me for a 
rattlepate when I spoke courage, and for a revolu- 
tionist when I preached freedom?" Then he goes 
on to describe the confusion at the Tuileries, the 
two processions that went up and down the stairs of 
the Pavilion of Flora, asking each other what was 
to be done; the frightened people who questioned 
the captain of the guards, the chaplains, the pre- 
centors, the almoners; he draws pictures of the 
tumults, the fruitless consultations, the vain search 
for news ; of young men who wept with rage w^hen 
their demands for orders and arms proved unavail- 
ing; and women who swooned with rage and scorn. 
Nevertheless, writers in the royalist journals 
assumed the tone heroic. Leonidas at Thermopylae 
was not more dignified. The Debats said on the 
18th of March: "Bonaparte needs mercy from all 
his contemporaries ; he needs mercy from the future ; 
but no man worthy of the name of man needs the 
mercy of Bonaparte. As for ourselves, we have 
sworn not to receive at his hands the humiliating 
boon of life, and will show that a patriotic press 
has, too, its courage, its devotion, and its love of 
glory. Fame has palms for Lucan as well as for 



THE KING'S DEPARTURE 213 

Tliraseas. All services are honorable, all deaths are 
illustrious, when one labors for freedom and country ! 
King, country, and freedom I These are the price 
of death, — death in the curule chair of the Senate, 
on the field of battle, or on the martyr's scaffold — 
everywhere death is beautiful and to be desired. 
There is no agony, no torment, that cannot be repaid 
by sentiments so noble and so tender. But what 
compassion shall ever compensate for the infamy of 
living under a tyrant ? Long live the King ! Long 
live the country! Long live Freedom! " 

And this was not the last oration made in the 
manner of the ancients. It was said in the Dehats 
of the following day, March 19th, when the King 
took flight: ''Under Bonaparte we would have a 
governent of Mamelukes. . . . He is an Attila, 
a Gengis Khan, but more terrible and hateful 
than they because the resources of civilization are 
at his command, and it is apparent that he uses 
them to organize massacre and administer pillage; 
he does not disguise his intentions; he despises us 
too much to condescend to deceive us. And, in- 
deed, what people would better deserve contempt, 
if we should reach out our arms to receive his 
shackles ? And, as the heart of the profound objec- 
tion to such a course, what should we dare to say to 
the King whom we could not recall, since the Powers 
would respect the independence of the national pref- 
erences, — what, I repeat, should we dare to say to 
that King whom we voluntarily brought back to 



214 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

the land where his family had suffered so much 
already ? We should say to him : You trusted the 
French; we surrounded you with homage, and, 
believing our oaths, you left your asylum and came 
among us alone and unarmed. So long as there was 
no danger, so long as you had the favors of power 
to dispose of, a great people deafened you with their 
noisy applause. You did not abuse its enthusiasm. 
One year of jout reign did not cause as many tears 
to flow as one single day of Bonaparte's rule. But 
he appeared on our frontiers, — he, the man stained 
with our blood and but recently driven out with the 
curses of us all. He came, he menaced, and neither 
oaths nor manhood restrained us, nor did your trust 
in us keep us to our duty, nor did we respect old 
age. You thought you had found a nation, but you 
found only a horde of perjured slaves. 

"No, such shall not be our language. Such, at 
least, shall not be mine. I say to-day, without 
fear of misconception, that I have sought for lib- 
erty under many shapes. I have seen that it was 
possible under monarchy; I have seen the King 
fraternize with the nation, and I will not, like a 
contemptible time-server, go from one side to the 
other, cover infamy with sophistry, and cringe with 
debasing words in order to purchase a shameful 
existence." 

Contrary to the custom of the journal, this was a 
signed article. It bore the signature of Benjamin 
de Constant. Why did that eminent political 



THE KING'S DEPARTURE 215 

writer, contrary to his custom, now put his name 
at the end of his article? Because he wished to 
protect himself against himself, to forearm himself 
against future changes by making these solemn dec- 
larations? Ah, well! that precaution was not of 
much avail. Two days afterwards, the Debats 
appeared under its former title of the Journal de 
rUmpire, and, within a short time, M. Benjamin 
de Constant, who, on the 19th of March, had played 
the part of Gicero against Catiline, was made coun- 
cillor of state by Napoleon. 

The last hour of the first Restoration had struck. 
Louis XVIII. decided to set out in the evening, but 
on the 19th of March he wished to play the King 
once more. He went at noon to review his military 
household in the Champ-de-Mars. " It was then only 
by miracle that royalty could be saved," says the 
Count de Puymaigre, an eye-witness, "and yet on 
seeing that huge national guard, the newly created 
household troops of the King and the rich uniforms 
that glittered in the courtyard of the Tuileries, 
who would not have believed that the throne was 
established on unshakable foundations ? I put myself 
under the protection of a subaltern attached to the 
service of the chateau, and we went as far as the 
Horloge Pavilion at the foot of the grand stairway, 
and there, at a time mournful and sombre as the 
future of France, I saw Louis XVIII. painfully get 
into his carriage to proceed to the accomplishment 
of a last duty of royalty. This then, said I to 



216 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

myself, is one of the last days of monarcliy, which 
dies amid all the semblances of formidable strength 
and all the deceitful appearances of power." 

The review was very fine. The King's military 
household greeted him with great warmth. The 
sovereign's intention to leave the country was not 
yet known. The morning's Moniteur had character- 
ized the rumor on that subject as an absurd lie 
which only evil-disposed men believed. But the 
King knew perfectly well that he was to leave in 
the evening. At nine o'clock in the morning he 
had summoned Marshal Marmont, who had general 
control of the military household, and had given him 
a slip of paper designating the time of departure to 
a minute, and saying that the King would go to 
Saint-Denis where he would remain to give further 
orders. 

When the review was over, the King went back 
to the Tuileries in all the calmness of despair. 
These words are used by Baron de Vitrolles, who 
continues : " The rest of the day was j)^ssed in con- 
ferences, personal arrangements, and discussing the 
intelligence that we constantly received of the 
Emperor's approach, and which did not come fast 
enough for us if we got it every fifteen minutes. 
One would have had to be present during those last 
moments in order to understand the singularity of 
that situation in which, though still alive, one knows 
that one will be dead to-morrow. While passing 
a room on the ground-floor of the Tuileries, I was 



THE KING'S DEPARTURE 217 

struck at seeing a magnificent dinner prepared in 
honor of the Spanish Ambassador. It was what is 
called in the language of etiquette an 'entertain- 
ment,' that is to say, a repast of twenty-five or 
thirty covers, and given in the King's name by his 
maitre d'hotel. The dinner was ended four or five 
hours before the King's departure! We were, for- 
sooth, the masters as yet, and everybody obeyed us 
as if we were still in full sway. People even came 
to ask for decorations." 

At half-after eleven in the evening, M. de 
Vitrolles went to Louis XVIII., whom he found 
calm and acting as usual. The King said to him : 
" Go to Bordeaux and Toulouse, and do there what- 
ever you think necessary on my account. Send this 
letter to my niece, whom you will direct to stay at 
Bordeaux as long as she can, and then counsel to 
do as I am doing." Taking the letter from the 
King's hand, M. de Vitrolles then said: "Sire, I 
greatly regret that I could not have foreseen Your 
Majesty's orders: I wish I could have been with the 
ministers while receiving your instructions. They 
would have enlightened me about them." — '^ Mitte 
safientem et nihil dicas,^^ replied the King. The 
Baron mafle a profound bow on receiving this Latin 
compliment, and assured His Majesty that he was 
happy to have another opportunity to prove his 
unbounded devotion. He merely observed that the 
important trust confided to him required powers 
from the King. "Powers?" replied Louis XVIIL 



218 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



"You do not need any; you are my minister and 
have full powers. Besides, the presence of my 
nephew and niece will give you all the authority 
you require." After these words he extended his 
hand to the Baron, who kissed it and withdrew, 
more moved certainly than the King was himself. 

Let us hear M. de Vitrolles further: "I cast a 
last look at the Tuileries, but now so brilliant with 
lights, so joyous, so full of men and motion, — at 
that palace which but a short time ago was sur- 
rounded with all that seems great and powerful, but 
now dark, lonely, abandoned by its masters, and 
ready to be given over to a Corsican who had no 
other right to it than his audacity and the servility 
of a horde of fanatics. And it was before such a 
man that the royal family and a whole monarchy was 
taking flight, driven for a second time along the 
highroad to exile ! 

"I went home full of sorrowful thoughts. There 
I found a few friends, among whom was the Moni- 
teur Officiel^ in the person of Sauvo, who had come 
to submit the articles to me, as if for us there would 
be a morrow to that fatal day. I smiled at the 
thought that we would still throw this last word to 
the public after having gone away." 

That last word was the proclamation which 
appeared in the Moniteur on the following morning, 
— the 20th of March, and in which the fugitive 
monarch said: "Divine Providence, which called us 
to the throne of our fathers, now permits that throne 



THE KING'S DEPABTURE 219 

to fall through the treason of an armed force that 
had sworn to defend it. We might take advantage of 
the faithful and patriotic sentiments of the immense 
majority of the inhabitants of Paris, and dispute the 
entrance of the rebels into the capital, but we 
shudder at the thought of all the evils of every sort 
that would be brought upon the inhabitants by a 
battle under their walls. We retire with a few 
brave men whom intrigue and perfidy have not suc- 
ceeded in seducing from their duty, and, since we 
are unable to defend our capital, we will go away to 
collect forces and seek in another part of the king- 
dom, not subjects more loving and faithful than our 
good Parisians, but Frenchmen in a better position 
to declare for the good cause." 

It would soon be midnight. In a few minutes 
the hour fixed for the King's departure would strike. 
Travelling-carriages stood before the Pavilion of 
Flora. A few persons at the chateau were informed 
of the sovereign's determination. In an instant 
everybody knows it, and there is general consterna- 
tion. Body-guards, employees of the palace, and 
national guards on duty hasten from all parts to 
await Louis XVIII. in the vestibule. Under the 
light of torches which an hussar carries before him, 
the King, supported by M. de Blacas and the Duke 
of Duras, slowly descends the staircase of the Pavil- 
ion of Flora. Men kneel before him, kiss his hands, 
beg him to remain and swear to defend him. 
Unusually moved, the royal fugitive says to the 



220 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULjEIME 

weeping crowd: "My children, your attachment 
touches my heart; I do not say adieu, but au revoir.'' 
The weather is dreadful; rain falls in torrents. It 
is a night filled Avith anguish and mourning. The 
King slowly enters the carriage, and the wind blow- 
ing in violent gusts extinguishes the torches that 
cast a dismal glare over the scene, the prelude of 
exile. 

The late Duke of Broglie, who was as ill-disposed 
towards the elder branch of the Bourbons as towards 
the Emperor, exclaims in his Souvenirs: "On see- 
ing that little man, made so great by a hundred 
victories, at the head of a handful of old mustaches, 
tumble down a card castle with one fillip of his 
fingers, and kick over the whole scenery of the play, 
I could not help recalling an incident in the romance 
of Cervantes, where the hero of La Mancha goes into 
a booth of marionettes, and, seeing a puppet dressed 
like a captive princess and in thrall to a huge 
painted giant, draws his big sword, and cuts down 
dungeon and prisoners, mountebank and stall." 

The Duke describes also the 20th day of March: 
" The day following the departure of him who had 
been permitted to depart was still more mournful 
than that which preceded it. Paris was sad; the 
public squares were deserted, and the cafes, where 
men used to meet, were for the most part closed; 
passers-by avoided them, and in the streets hardly 
anybody was met but belated military men, officers 
in merry mood, and drunken soldiers singing the 



THE KING'S DEPABTURE 221 

Marseillaise Hymn — the everlasting refrain of roist- 
erers, offering tricolor cockades to everybody in jest 
and almost at the sabre's point." Then he shows 
us, like the little piece before the main play, how at 
nightfall Saint-Didier, formerly prefect of the palace, 
placed himself at the head of the imperial domestics, 
stewards, cooks, and scullions, each having doffed 
his livery, triumphantly took possession of the dis- 
ordered apartments, beds still unmade and chafing- 
dishes still steaming, and made a clean sweep of all 
that was left of the royal housekeeping. 

"The master came," continues the Duke de 
Broglie, "in the words of the New Testament, 
which were never more appropriate, 'like a thief in 
the night. ' He ascended the great staircase of the 
Tuileries, supported by his generals, and all the fol- 
lowers of his fortunes, past and present, whose faces, 
nevertheless, were fully as anxious as they were 
expectant." There is to be a complete change of 
scenery. The Dehats, once more the Journal de 
r Umpire, is about to say: "Paris, March 20. — The 
Bourbon family left Paris last night. It is not yet 
known what road they took. To-day Paris puts on 
a look of security and joy. The boulevards are 
filled with an immense crowd, impatient to see the 
army and its heroic leader who has already returned. 
The small number of troops who were foolishly 
expected to oppose him have rallied to the eagles, 
and the whole French militia, become national 
again, is marching under the banners of glory and 



222 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

the fatherland. The Emperor has sped like light- 
ning across two hundred leagues, in the midst of 
a people transported with admiration and respect, 
filled with present happiness and the assurance 
of happiness for the future." What! Is this the 
language of the Debats! The journal is still pub- 
lished at the old stand, No. 17 Pretres-Saint- 
Germain I'Auxerrois. 'Tis the same printing-house, 
— that of Le Normant; the sheet is as large as ever 
and its look is the same; nothing about it has 
changed except its opinions. 

And now hear what the JDehats, which is Bona- 
partist again, says in its issue of March 22d: 
" Paris, March 21. — Yesterday His Majesty the 
Emperor entered Paris at the head of the same 
troops that went out in the morning to oppose his 
march. The army which has sprung into existence 
since he landed, was unable to come further than 
Fontainebleau. During his journey His Majesty re- 
viewed several bodies of troops. Wherever he went 
he was preceded and surrounded by an immense 
number of people. This morning and all through 
the day a vast concourse covered the terrace of the 
chateau of the Tuileries, making the air resound 
with the liveliest acclaims of love and joy. His 
Majesty appeared several times at the windows of 
his apartments, and was welcomed with endlessly 
repeated shouts of 'Long live the Emperor! ' " And 
when Napoleon shall go to the theatre and be 
received with the boisterous applause by the same 



THE KING'S DEPABTUBE 223 

claqueurs who once welcomed Louis XVIII., the 
journal will exclaim: "Last evening the Emperor 
was present at a representation of Hector. The 
audience was very large. His Majesty was greeted 
with hearty applause, which was repeated all through 
the play with inexpressible enthusiasm. Among 
the lines that brought forth universal plaudits were 
the following: 

" ' Like some Colossus vast, a warrior comes 

To the unshaken army. 'Tis he ! Achilles 'twas. 
He came at last.' 

At these words, cries of 'Long live the Emperor! * 
filled the air. The stalls and the parterre mingled 
their shouts, which were renewed every moment, 
since every scene of the drama afforded striking 
allusions to the memorable events which we have 
just witnessed." 

How strange the epoch! How melancholy the 
shifting of scenery ! The bravest soldiers and the best 
citizens asked themselves what they ought to do, 
and their consciences thus questioned knew not what 
to reply. Never was seen such a confusion in facts 
and opinions. It resembled the eclipse of right and 
duty. France was like a puzzled actress who, hav- 
ing been assigned to two different parts in the same 
scene, confounds the one with the other. For one 
single nation there were two sovereigns, two flags, 
and, it may even be said, two countries. 



XXI 



BORDEAUX 



WE left the Duchess of Angouleme at Bor- 
deaux on the morning of the 10th of March, 
1815, at the hour when her husband, having passed 
the night at the ball given in their honor by the 
city merchants, set out post-haste for Nimes, where 
he was to take command of the troops opposed to 
the progress of Napoleon. 

The news of the Emperor's landing on the coast 
of the Gulf of Juan did not change the sentiments 
of the Bordeaux royalists. The fete which the city 
gave to celebrate the anniversary of the 12th of 
March, when Bordeaux was the first French city to 
proclaim the restoration of the Bourbons, was sig- 
nalized by a fresh outburst of enthusiasm. The 
Duchess of Angouleme could have wished to return 
to Paris immediately after the festivities, there to 
share the perils of the King. But Louis XVIII. 
sent orders that she was to remain at Bordeaux to 
organize resistance in the city. Thereafter the 
Princess displayed indefatigable activity; she made 
the troops take the oath of loyalty over again, 
held reviews, created corps of volunteers, received 

224 



BORDEAUX 225 



subscriptions, and presided over a government coun- 
cil with as much presence of mind as firmness. 

On the morning of the 23d of March Baron de 
Vitrolles arrived at Bordeaux. He was driven at 
once to the palace of the Princess. The doors were 
immediately opened, and he saw at the end of several 
parlors the daughter of Louis XVI. on her knees 
before her prie-dieu. At the noise made by the 
Baron on entering with the hussar who announced 
him, the Princess rose with a disturbed contenance. 
M. de Vitrolles at once and without preamble pre- 
sented the King's letter; then he told her the sad 
news from Paris and spoke of the impossibility of 
getting any one there to defend the capital, and also 
of the abrupt departure of the sovereign. The 
Princess courageously fortified herself to hear with- 
out pallor the recital of these events, which Louis 
XVIII. 's letter did not explain. The Baron tried 
to console her by lajdng down a plan of resistance 
for the western and southern provinces : the occupa- 
tion of the left bank of the Loire by troops drawn 
from the corps of Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr and 
the Duke of Bourbon; the establishment of a cen- 
tral administration at Toulouse; a levy of volun- 
teers from Marseilles to Nantes; the disbanding of 
those regiments which were uncertain ; and the con- 
centration of all the royalist forces in the strongest 
possible way. The face of the Duchess of Angou- 
leme cleared, and hope seemed to take the place of 
anxiety. "That, Madame," said the Baron in con- 



226 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

elusion, " is what we are going to do, or rather what 
we shall try to do as soon as possible and with all 
the energy that the noble cause we defend can give 
us; that is what we shall endeavor to accomplish, 
though probably too late." — "Why do you say 
that?" asked the Princess. "Because it is too late, 
Madame; because Paris is no longer ours, and its 
influence will paralyze all our efforts. Because 
. . ." — "Don't tell me that," interrupted the Prin- 
cess; "what is so well conceived is already suc- 
cessfully executed." 

The Princess then said to M. de Vitrolles that as 
yet she had seen no sign of defection among the 
troops of the Bordeaux garrison; that the officers, 
without being consumed with zeal, seemed disposed 
to do their duty. That General Decaen, who com- 
manded the division, was suspected of incapacity 
by some people, and of still worse things by others, 
but that nothing seemed to her to justify these 
suspicions. She then accompanied M. de Vitrolles 
to the great hall of the palace, where three or four 
hundred civil and military officers were assembled. 
She introduced the Baron to the assemblage and 
announced the powers with which he had been in- 
vested by the King to complete the administrative 
organization of the loyal provinces, and then she 
withdrew. 

M. de Vitrolles remained and addressed the func- 
tionaries. His enticing words roused enthusiasm in 
his auditors. Then he had a private conversation 



BORDEAUX 227 



with General Decaen. "I congratulate you," said 
he, "on the confidence with which you have 
inspired Madame. In our coming relations, my 
confidence in you will be boundless." He then 
gave the general to understand that faithful servants 
would merit the greatest recompense from the crown 
for their assistance amid such dangers. 

A courtier employed by the Spanish embassy was 
going through Bordeaux. A letter was given to 
him, in which the Duchess of Angouleme asked the 
Duke of Montmorency-Laval, Louis XVIII. 's am- 
bassador at Madrid, to beg the King of Spain to 
send a body of troops into France. "General 
Decaen," says M. cle Vitrolles, "was the first to 
speak to me of the coming of Spanish troops, and 
he proposed that I should go on and prepare for 
their reception. . . . The Duchess of Angouleme 
instructed me to send the King's letter to the Duke 
of Bourbon, in which the purport of my mission and 
my approaching residence at Toulouse were made 
known to him. . . . Madame 's expectations in 
regard to the outcome of the projects we had in 
mind at that time and the part she was disposed to 
take in all of them that were glorious, though dan- 
gerous, inspired admiration for her person and char- 
acter and gave unspeakable energy to all who were 
called into her service. One could have wished to 
realize the most extravagant of them, if only so as 
not to be put to the pain of destroying such noble 
illusions. I left Bordeaux, at which I had stayed 



228 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

for thirty hours, loaded with evidences of her good- 
ness, and proud of the boundless trust she reposed 
in my zeal in defence of the royal cause and for the 
safety of the Duke of Angouleme, — thoughts with 
which she was constantly busied." 

Nevertheless, the situation was hourly growing 
more gloomy for the Princess. It became evident 
that she could not count on the fidelity of the garri- 
son. On the 26th of March, they went to review 
without wearing the royal arms on their shakos. 
It was learned at the same time that General Clausel, 
whom the Emperor had placed in command of the 
11th Military Division on the removal of General 
Decaen, was approaching to take possession of Bor- 
deaux. 

On the 29th of March, the Duchess of Angouleme 
wrote to Count de La Chatre, Louis XVIII. 's 
representative in London, a letter which the Mar- 
quis of Thury has obligingly permitted us to see, 
and which shows the extremities to which the Prin- 
cess was reduced: "I readily avail myself, sir, of 
the offer of the Duke of Lorges to return to Eng- 
land, to inform you in regard to my position and 
that of the south. All the ports of Rochefort, La 
Rochelle, and Nantes are in insurrection. Bor- 
deaux still remains faithful, but God only knows 
how long it will stay so. It must be saved for the 
King, and to that end I have directed the English 
consul here, whom I cannot too much praise, to ask 
his government to send English vessels up the 



BOBDEATIX 229 



river and bring money, arms, and troops, as it is 
absolutely necessary to save the region to the King. 
I have succeeded in making the authorities see the 
necessity of summoning foreigners to their aid and 
receiving them amicably. The consul has promised 
me that they will come as friends, as they did last 
year, and will commit no hostilities where they see 
the white flag. He mentioned Blaye, and asked 
if the English might go into garrison there. I 
refused and told him that there ought to be national 
guards in the fortress; but I now learn that the 
troops refused to obey the governor's order to 
return, and that they, like the city, are in open 
revolt. ... I shall remain here as long as possi- 
ble. One cannot say what will happen from one 
day to another, or even in a few hours. The fires of 
rebellion are spreading through the whole neighbor- 
hood. As yet we are untouched and have courage 
and the best wishes of the good and faithful, but 
timid citizens. Some bad subjects have acted fool- 
ishly, and one of the regiments is at least doubtful. 
I am very well satisfied with the authorities. I 
believe that if I have to leave this good city to 
which I came under such happy circumstances, and 
without foreseeing all these new misfortunes, I shall 
go to Spain. This is what I am advised to do. I 
have already written twice to Ferdinand VII. ; the 
first time to ask for assistance, protection, and brief 
asylum in his dominions if I should be forced to 
seek it, and the second time, after I had received 



230 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

powers from the King, to ask him to send troops to 
France. This is very important. I trust that they 
will be well received by the inhabitants, coming, as 
they will, as friends and allies of the King, and 
that they will give support to our volunteers and 
national guards, the only troops on which we can 
still count. I do not want to cede Bayonne to the 
Spanish so long as it can be defended against Bona- 
parte. 

"According to the latest advices, the Duke of 
Angouleme is still at Nimes. He has assembled 
a number of troops of all classes and will march 
against Lyons. He is satisfied with the disposition 
of the country, but his position is very perilous. I 
avow that I am not without grave anxiety about 
him. Thrust as he is into a district from which he 
has no certain means of escape, if escape should 
become necessary, he certainly has much to fear. 
This makes it requisite that the Spaniards should 
come promptly to his assistance. May God watch 
over and make him victorious ! The position of the 
Duke of Bourbon also seems very difficult. Yester- 
day evening a courier came to me from him; he is 
still in Vendee and hopes to bring the people to his 
support; there are very few of them, and they are 
without weapons; some of the cities are in revolt, 
and all the ports, which fact deprives him of means 
of escape. This is why I write, asking you to urge 
the English ministry, if it wishes to rescue the 
Duke of Bourbon, to send troops at once to the 



BORDEAUX 231 



river-front of Bordeaux with sufficient money and 
arms to support the well-affected volunteers." 

The Duchess of Angouleme, whose heart was 
thoroughly French, must have suffered cruelly to 
implore foreign aid. Her letter ends thus : " There 
you have, sir, all the news I can give you from here. 
The news is not pleasant, but as yet there is no 
cause for despair. I keep up my courage and am 
hopeful. But the position of the King afflicts me 
greatly, and I am very sorry about the journey that 
separated me from him while such things were 
going on. My only consolation is the thought that 
perhaps my presence here may be of service to him ; 
my sole desire, my one object, is to work in his 
behalf." 

The chief characters in the drama we are about to 
describe are the Duchess of Angouleme, General 
Decaen, and General Clausel. We say drama, 
because in the eyes of the daughter of Louis XYI. 
it was one of the saddest episodes in her history, 
and one replete with catastrophes. The assistants 
in the drama are the city population, the national 
guard, and the volunteers. 

The Duchess of Angouleme, a woman devoted to 
duty, and one of deep convictions and indomitable 
heart, and who closely resembled her grandmother 
the great Empress, Maria Theresa, understood how 
to set an example of courage and energy to everybody. 
The idea of flight was revolting to her pride. Being 
unable to get used to the thought that all the enthu- 



232 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

siastic demonstrations of which she had for a month 
been the object would prove to be shams, she was 
willing till the end to put confidence in sworn 
fidelity. The soldiers of the garrison greeted her 
with the same applause as the inhabitants of the 
city. Did not the ofiicers continually tell her that 
though she ran risks, they would be happy to shed 
their last drop of blood for her? Did they not 
weary her with their protestations of devotion? 
Was not the odor of the incense burned before her 
extremely encouraging? Ah, well! The time to 
keep all these fine promises has come. What! 
would all this splendid talk turn out to be a mere 
lie? The daughter of the martyred King and 
Queen, the orphan of the Temple whose legendary 
woes had been remembered with such piety and 
tenderness, — was she not to remain even one year 
in her native land before once more being driven 
into exile ? How cruel the thought ! How unspeak- 
able her anguish ! The Duchess sometimes says to 
herself: "No; not flight, — rather death ! " It is not 
alone as a princess of the House of Bourbon that she 
suffers, but as a Frenchwoman. Convinced that the 
brief triumph of Bonaparte will be the cause of terri- 
ble disasters, bloody catastrophes, and hecatombs of 
victims if foreigners invade the country, she acts 
neither from selfishness nor from ambition. She will 
not deign to bow her head before the tempest, how- 
ever rude it may be, for she is firmly convinced that 
the Bourbon cause is the cause of her fatherland. 



BOBBEAUX 233 



This is why that woman who would willingly have 
sacrificed herself if she had acted on her own im- 
pulse, is so furious, so impassioned, in defence of the 
King. To her it is a question of conscience; it is 
a question of honor. 

General Decaen was preyed upon by the greatest 
perplexities. Filled with admiration for Napoleon 
and for the Duchess of Angouleme, he wanted to 
serve both the Emperor and the Princess at the same 
time. The oaths he had taken in succession were 
mutually contradictory in the court of conscience. 
At the outset he did not think that his former 
master would be successful. While living in an 
atmosphere of the most pure and exalted royalism he 
had issued a proclamation to his command, on the 
11th of March, and in it were the following expres- 
sions: "A man who betrayed the dearest interests 
of France and was ready to sacrifice them to his 
personal ambition, — a man who left the country 
defenceless and at the mercy of foreigners; who 
voluntarily abdicated a crown which he was not 
intelligent enough to keep although a million brave 
soldiers had died in its defence, has now proved false 
to his oaths and come, at the head of a horde of 
insensate men, to violate our territory." The gen- 
eral took part in the royalist fete of the 12th of 
March, and was connected with all the manifesta- 
tions of devotion to the daughter of Louis XVI. 
Since then he had been incessantly at the side of the 
Princess, who gave him distinguished proofs of con- 



234 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



fidence and treated him in the most flattering way. 
At banquets — for the troops still fraternized with 
the national guard — it was he who proposed the 
toast to duty and fidelity. It was hard for him 
to forsake a man who was his sovereign. But a 
woman ! To betray a woman ; to deliver up a wo- 
man to her enemies was repugnant to the heart of 
a Frenchman. Besides this, General Decaen had 
a horror of civil war. He believed that the Bour- 
bon cause was irrecoverably lost, since he knew that 
the Emperor had triumphantly entered the Tuileries. 
His opinion thereafter was that Napoleon could only 
have returned with the consent of the Powers, and 
especially of Austria, and that Louis XYIII. could 
rely on foreigners no more than he could on France. 
And then, — what would be the use of a fratricidal 
struggle with his old comrades in arms ? How un- 
happy is a time when men of courage are exposed to 
such uncertainty as to what is duty and right ! 

As regards General Clausel, it was but a few days 
since he had entertained no animosity whatever 
against the Restoration. Very well placed at court, 
given the grand cross of the Legion of Honor, and 
made inspector-general of infantry by Louis XVHL, 
he had every reason to be satisfied with the King. 
He had received the Duke of Angouleme at Toulouse 
the previous year, and given him the most loyal and 
respectful welcome. He had the highest esteem for 
the character of Louis XVI.'s daughter, and would 
have grieved to see any misfortune happen to that 



BOBBEAUX 235 



noble and courageous Princess. But, like all the 
rest of the army, General Clausel was carried away 
by the prestige of Napoleon's coming to conquer 
France with a handful of men. After the King's 
hasty flight, he could not believe that a woman could 
entertain the idea of defending Bordeaux. Already 
sure of the imperialist sentiments of the garrison, he 
started with only two aides-de-camp, and without con- 
cerning himself about the currents of the Dordogne 
and the Garonne, which he must cross before reaching 
his post. A few pieces of cannon suffice to arrest 
considerable bodies of troops. On his way, General 
Clausel picked up several gendarmes and about 
two hundred foot soldiers. "With this little band 
he proposed to conquer his own command, the 11th 
Military Division, whose headquarters were at Bor- 
deaux. It was a sort of miniature edition of the 
return from Elba. The general advanced tranquilly, 
feeling convinced that the National Guard of Bor- 
deaux would oppose no serious resistance, and hoping 
that the Duchess of Angouleme would understand 
the situation, and fly as her uncle, the King, had 
done. 

The population is very well disposed towards 
the royal cause, but it would not be wise to 
demand great sacrifices from them. Bordeaux, that 
amiable, intelligent, and lettered city, proud of 
its fine theatre and its vast commerce, would not 
willingly undergo a siege like that of Saragossa. 
Bordeaux it was which, on the 12th of March, 1814, 



236 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

had been the first French city to unfurl the white 
flag. But — thanks to British troops — that exploit 
was very easily accomplished. The people of Bor- 
deaux will burst into tears, talk, and cheers, but a 
battery of imperial artillery pointed at their walls 
will very soon set them to thinking. 

The national guard is still enthusiastic over the 
Duchess of Angouleme. Accompanied by troops of 
the line, it may even fight bravely, but to struggle 
alone against imperialist regiments will be a task 
absolutely beyond its powers. When it shall be 
advised by some one to make a sortie en masse to 
meet the little army of General Clausel it will reply, 
perhaps rightly: "It is impossible; we should be 
between two fires. As soon as we had left Bor- 
deaux, the garrison would declare against us and 
pursue us." 

Nevertheless, some volunteers are found among 
the more decided, the men who are under orders 
to march against General Clausel. There are about 
five hundred of them, and, with several cannon, 
they are placed on the left bank of the Dordogne 
— General Clausel takes up a position on the 
right bank, at the castle of Saint- Andre de Cubzac. 
He asks the royal volunteers to send him some- 
body with whom he can confer. M. de Martignac 
is sent. The general tells him that resistance will 
be useless; that, had it been his wish, he could 
already have been master of Bordeaux, where the 
entire garrison is impatiently expecting him; that 



BORDEAUX 237 



out of respect for the Duchess of Angouleme, of 
whom he had the most pleasant recollections, he had 
postponed for a day his entrance into the city in 
order to give the Princess time to make her escape ; 
but that a second postponement was out of the ques- 
tion, and that he thought it a proof of his deference 
for Madame that he begged her to go away. He 
then gives the messenger a despatch for the authori- 
ties of Bordeaux; it is a demand that the gates of 
the city be opened to the imperial troops on the next 
day, the 31st of March. M. de Martignac with- 
draws and takes the despatch to the Duchess of 
Angouleme. 

The Princess convokes the general council of the 
department, the council of the arrondissement, and 
the city council, in order to discuss the situation. 
General Decaen assists at the deliberation. He does 
not conceal the truth. The garrison at the citadel 
of Blaye, at the mouth of the Gironde, has already 
been won over by emissaries of General Clausel. 
It has unfurled the tricolor, and the Bordeaux gar- 
rison awaits only a signal to follow the example. 
If the national guard leaves the city, the troops will 
at once pronounce for the Emperor. It is learned 
also that General Clausel has just crossed the Dor- 
dogne, where the royal forces have been repulsed. 

M. de Martignac returns, in his quality as go- 
between, to the general to ask of him a further 
delay of twenty-four hours, during which perhaps 
the Princess will decide to take her departure. 



238 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL&ME 

This delay is granted. But the daughter of Louis 
XVI. does not want to abandon her post. She is 
informed that the tricolor already floats on the right 
bank of the Garonne. Nothing either intimidates 
or discourages her. On the morning of the 1st of 
April she says to General Decaen: "I wish the 
troops to assemble at once in their barracks ; I will 
go and see them." — "Madame," replies the general, 
"I ask Your Highness 's permission to disobey you. 
You do not dream of the possible consequences of 
such a visit at such a moment." "General, I wish 
it. If it has bad results, it is I who take the respon- 
sibility." Somebody said: "But, Madame, doubt- 
less, does not understand that there has been a fresh 
distribution of cartridges this morning, one made by 
the orders of government." — "I will compel nobody 
to follow me," says the Princess. "'Tis enough; I 
have given an order; I wish to be obeyed." 

It is two o'clock in the afternoon. The Duchess 
of Angouleme sets out in an open carriage, to go 
to the Saint-Raphael barracks. General Decaen, on 
horseback, is at her right hand. Surrounded by a 
comparatively large staff, she is followed by an 
escort of officers, volunteers, and national guards. 
When she reaches the barracks, she alights and 
enters them. The soldiers are placed in two ranks 
that face each other. The officers come forward and 
surround the Princess. " Gentlemen, " she says, "I 
am not ignorant of what has been going on. A 
usurper has taken the crown from your King. Bor- 



BORDEAUX 239 



deaux is threatened by a factious crowd. The 
national guard is determined to defend the city. 
Are you willing to assist the national guard? I 
want you to answer me frankly. Let there be no 
equivocation. Yes or no — will you fight for the 
King?" 

There is no response. An icy silence prevails. 
"You do not then remember the oath you renewed 
but a short time ago, between these hands of mine ? 
If there still remain among you some men who do 
remember them and who are faithful to the cause 
of the King, let them come out from the ranks ; let 
them show themselves ! " A few officers step out. 
"There are very few of you. It does not matter. 
I know at least who are to be counted on ! " A 
chief of battalion says : " Your Highness may count 
on us to look after you personally." — " The matter," 
says she, "does not concern me; it concerns the 
King. Yes or no — will you serve him?" "We 
have no desire for civil war. We will not fight 
against our brothers!" — "Your brothers? You 
forget that they are rebels!" — and the Princess 
withdraws, calm and haughty. 

Still less does her visit to the second barracks 
reassure her. This time, the Duchess of Angou- 
leme is received not with silence, but with actual 
hostility. She wishes to speak, and her voice is 
drowned with cries of "Long live the Emperor!" 
She looks at the soldiers with dignity, and leaves 
them with laggard footsteps. 



240 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

"Now," she says, "I will go to the third barracks, 
those of the Chateau-Trompette." In vain do they 
try to dissuade her. Despising all pusillanimous 
advice, she goes her own way. When she reaches 
the very entrance of the fortress Chateau-Trompette, 
she is notified that she will not be permitted to 
enter with her generals and her equerry, M. de 
Lur-Saluces. "No matter," she says, "I will go 
in alone." In the barracks she finds a regiment of 
the sixty-second line. She asks the commander: 
"Do you intend to fight in the King's cause." — 
"No, Madame," replies the commander; "circum- 
stances are changed, and, besides, our soldiers will 
not fight against Frenchmen." "If that is the 
reason that prevents you from doing your duty," 
replies the Princess, "promise me at least to remain 
neutrals, and allow the national guards and the 
royal volunteers to defend themselves." — "No, 
Madame," cries the captain of the battalion; "if the 
national guard attacks us, we will throw ourselves 
on it in turn." These final words draw tears from 
the daughter of Louis XVI. She dejectedly says: 
"Then you no longer regard as Frenchmen those 
who remain faithful to the calls of honor," and, 
turning to the officers, she says : " Do you all think 
as your commander does?" They answer, "Yes." 
One alone, Captain Cosseron de Villenoisy, opposes 
the general defection. Stepping from the ranks and 
advancing toward the Princess, he says : " I will not 
increase the number of traitors. Rather will I die 



BOBDEAUX 241 



for the King than be false to my oath." The Duch- 
ess of Angouleme replies: "I cannot consent to 
your sacrifice, Captain." At this moment some of 
the soldiers become menacing. The officer cries 
out : " If you would only reflect for a moment, you 
would follow my example. " Quiet is then restored, 
but the Princess, despairing of being able to recall 
the battalion to its duty to the King's cause, finds 
it necessary to withdraw. She goes back again 
under the batteries of the fort. Captain Cosseron 
de Villenoisy accompanies her. In the dignity of 
her mien, and in her imperturbable calmness, she 
shows herself worthy of her mother. Marie Antoi- 
nette, looking down from the balcony of the chateau 
at Versailles on the afternoon of the 6th of October, 
1789, and surveying the crowd that swarmed in the 
courtyard, displayed no greater firmness and pride. 
Her daughter withdrew with dignity, and as she left 
the fortress she was saluted with the roll of drums. 

It is finished; the end at last is at hand. The 
Princess summons M. de Martignac. "You will 
cross the river," she tells him, "and say to General 
Clausel that in happier times I recognized his ser- 
vices, and that then he often assured me of his 
devotion. I ask of him only one thing more, and 
that is that he will defer his entry into Bordeaux 
till to-morrow. I shall be most grateful for what 
he will have done for me." 

A review of the national guard and the volun- 
teers took place in the afternoon on the quay of the 



242 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Garonne. The Duchess of Angouleme attended it. 
General Clansel's troops could be seen on the oppo- 
site bank. The two flags were face to face, — the 
white on one shore, the tricolor on the other. The 
soldiers of the two rival causes were separated from 
each other only by half a cannon-shot. As soon as 
the Princess appeared she was received with unani- 
mous shouts by the militia of Bordeaux. Rising 
in her carriage so as to be heard more distinctly, 
she cries : " Citizens of Bordeaux, I am about to ask 
of you a new sacrifice, a new oath. Do you swear 
to obey me in everything?" — "We swear it." 
"Alas! after what I have seen we can no longer 
reckon on the help of the garrison. It is useless 
to attempt to defend ourselves. You have done 
enough for honor. Keep some faithful subjects for 
the King when better times shall come. I take 
everything on myself. I command you to resist no 
longer." — "No, no! we will die for the King and 
for you." "I have heard your oath. Surely, my 
good people of Bordeaux, you will not condescend 
to perjury. Your King's niece commands you. 
Obey. You must stop fighting. I am about to 
leave you. Receive my adieus." Hereupon a great 
tumult arises. Some are willing to obey, and others 
wish to struggle as long as possible. General 
Clausel, who, on the other bank of the river, hears 
the hubbub, trains some pieces of artillery on the 
spot where the Princess is reviewing the troops. 
Within a few days he will say to M. de Saint- 



BORDEAUX 243 



Girgues, one of the royal volunteers: "It was 
Madame, the Duchess of Angouleme, who saved you 
all. I could never consent to fire on the Princess, 
while she was writing the finest page in her history. 
It was the first duty of a soldier to respect such 
courage." 

During the review of the national guards on the 
quay of the Garonne, M. de Martignac, who has 
been sent as commissioner, is on the opposite side of 
the river with General Clausel. He is very anxious 
to defer the general's entry into Bordeaux till the 
next morning, the 2d of April. "What is the use 
of all this disturbance?" says the general, as he 
hears the shouts of the national guards in the dis- 
tance. " Am I not already master of the city ? Do 
you want proof of it ? I have but to give a signal, 
and immediately you will see the tricolor floating 
from the top of the Chateau-Trompette." No sooner 
said than done. The three colors appear there. On 
seeing them, the national guard send up a howl of 
rage. "We are betrayed!" they cry, and fire upon 
several of their officers whom they regard with 
suspicion. Unspeakable disorder prevails. The 
garrison is already leaving its barracks. 

Nevertheless, the Duchess of Angouleme goes back 
to the Ch£Lteau-Royal, accompanied still by General 
Decaen. Suddenly angrj^ shouts are heard before the 
gate : " Let us shoot General Decaen ! He is a trai- 
tor! " The Princess had to appear on the balcony in 
order to appease the crowd and keep it from crime. 



244 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

M. de Martignac has just returned, bringing Gen- 
eral Clausel's last word that, when the proper time 
comes, he will enter Bordeaux. Not wishing to be 
taken prisoner, the Duchess of Angouleme decides 
at last to leave the city. "Gentlemen," says she to 
the officers by whom she is still surrounded, " you 
answer to me for the safety of the town. Keep your 
troops and preserve Bordeaux from all disorder. 
From this moment it is in your hands." — "We 
swear it!" they cry. "Ah!" she replies, "more 
oaths! I have heard enough of them. I want to 
hear no more. The niece of your King gives you 
her last command. Obey it!" It is eight o'clock 
in the evening. The city is in gloom. The 
weather is as bad as it was when Louis XVIII. left 
Paris. Rain falls in torrents; the storm rages, and 
the daughter of Louis XVI. departs in despair. 



XXII 



LONDON 



THE Duchess of Angouleme sets out from Bor- 
deaux as a princess, with an escort of volun- 
teers and mounted national guards, who do not 
leave her till she embarks. On the day after her 
departure, a few minutes before General Clausel's 
entrance, people read the following proclamation 
dictated by the Princess and posted on the city 
walls on the 1st of April : " People of Bordeaux, 
your fidelity is known to me. Your boundless 
devotion prevents you from seeing any danger, but 
my attachment to you and to all Frenchmen demands 
that I shall be on the watch. My longer residence 
in your city would only make your position graver 
and visit you with heavy vengeance. I have not 
the courage to see Frenchmen unhappy and to be 
the cause of their misfortunes. I leave you, my 
brave citizens, deeply affected by the sentiments you 
have expressed in regard to me, and I assure you 
they will be faithfully transmitted to the King. 
By the blessing of God I shall soon be in better cir- 
cumstances, and then I will show you how both the 
Prince whom you love and myself appreciate your 

attachment." 

245 



246 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

On the morning of the 2d of April, in a cold rain 
accompanied by gusts of wind that had been blow- 
ing all night, the fugitive reached Pauillac, the 
little county-seat of a canton on the Gironde, in the 
arrondissement of Lesparre. There she heard Mass, 
and embarked on the English vessel Wanderer. In 
taking leave of the Frenchmen who composed her 
escort, she gave them some white and green ribbons 
that she wore in her hair. " Bring them back to me 
in better days," she said, "and Marie Thdr^se will 
show you that she has a good memory and that she 
has not forgotten her friends at Bordeaux." 

The bad weather that had begun on the 1st of 
April lasted a whole week. The waves of the sea 
were as tumultuous as the destinies of the unhappy 
Princess. The ship that bore her skirted the coasts 
of Spain, but could not effect a landing there, and 
it was not till the 8th of April that the port of 
Passages was entered. 

Hardly had she landed when she received a letter 
from the King of Spain, offering her an asylum in 
his dominions. She interrogated the Spanish offi- 
cers, and, finding that she could not effect anything 
to her purpose, she set sail for England on the 11th 
of April. The sea was rough and the wind con- 
trary, and it was not till the 19th that she reached 
Plymouth, whence she proceeded to London. On 
the same day of the foregoing year she had left 
Hartwell Castle, where she had spent most of her 
exile, and, with her uncle the King she had made a 



LONDON 247 



triumphal entrance into the English capital. On 
that day she had been welcomed with the greatest^ 
enthusiasm. The crowd unhitched the horses and 
drew the carriage of Louis XYI.'s brother and 
daughter. The London streets were draped with 
white flags and the windows were thronged with 
elegantly dressed women who waved their handker- 
chiefs in delight. To Louis XVIIL, at whose side 
his niece sat, the Prince Regent had said : " The 
triumph and transports of joy with which Your 
Majesty was greeted on your entrance to your own 
capital can hardly surpass the delight elicited by 
Your Majesty's restoration to the throne of your 
ancestors in the breasts of the inhabitants of the 
capital of the British Empire." 

How great the difference between the Duchess of 
Angouleme's departure from London in April, 1814, 
and her return to London in April, 1815! She 
came not now as a victorious Princess, but as a 
fugitive, a woman proscribed, but a proscribed 
woman who would not boAV her head under the 
blows of fate — a proscribed woman full of intelli- 
gence and pride, who, instead of succumbing to so 
cruel a series of disasters, showed in misfortunes 
only increased firmness, energy, and courage. 

Since leaving Bordeaux the Duchess of Angou- 
leme had known absolutely nothing of what had 
become of her husband, and this uncertainty plunged 
her into the gravest apprehensions. When she 
reached London, where she became the guest of 



248 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL:b]ME 

Count de La Chatre, Louis XVIII. 's ambassador, slie 
learned that the Duke was Napoleon's prisoner. On 
the 21st of April, M. de La Chtoe wrote to Count 
de Blacas: "The Princess displayed the greatest 
courage on the receipt of this dreadful intelligence, 
but tears filled her eyes when she was alone with 
me. 

At first the Duke of Angouleme had met with 
some success. After having added to his troops of 
the line some volunteers from Aix, Marseilles, and 
Nimes, he took Pont-Saint-Esprit on the 28th of 
March. At the head of six thousand men he led the 
white flag against the tricolor and entered Valence 
on the 3d of April. But his success was short- 
lived. Abandoned by most of his officers, menaced 
by a force superior to his own, attacked in front hj 
the troops and national guards of Lyons and his 
retreat cut off by General Gilly, who had aroused the 
regiment left at Nimes, he knew that all was lost. 
Then, intent only on saving those who were devoted 
to him, he capitulated on the 8th of April at 
Palud, a town near Pont-Saint-Esprit. The royal 
volunteers were to be disbanded, lay down their arms 
and return to their homes without molestation. The 
troops of the line were to give in their submission to 
the new government, and their officers were not to be 
molested because of their fidelity to the royal cause. 
As to the Duke of Angouleme, he was to betake 
himself to Cette, where he should embark for Spain. 
These were the terms of the capitulation concluded 



LONDON 249 

by Baron de Damas with General Gilly, and ratified 
by the Prince. On the following day he set out, 
and on reaching Pont-Saint-Esprit, he was arrested 
by the orders of General de Grouchy, who for some 
hours had been commander-in-chief of the imperi- 
alist forces. Without regard to the capitulation, 
the general asked orders from the Emperor. 

In attendance on the captive Prince were the 
Duke of Guiche, Baron de Damas, Viscount des 
Cars, and Count Gaston de L^vis. What was to 
become of him ? Should he dread the vengeance of 
Napoleon, outlawed by the Vienna Congress ? Was 
he to be held as a hostage, or was something worse 
in store for him? The royalists mentioned with 
terror the name of the Duke of Enghien. The 
Bonapartists raised threatening outcries around the 
house where he was held prisoner. But the Prince 
was perfectly untroubled ; " I am resigned to every- 
thing and worried only about those whom I hold 
dear," he wrote to Louis XVIII.; "but I ask and 
even exact that the King shall give up nothing in 
order to secure my release. I fear neither death nor 
imprisonment, and shall willingly accept at the 
hands of God whatever may come." 

Such was the news received by the Duchess of 
Angouleme upon reaching London. Her apprehen- 
sions, grave at first, will subside when she learns, a 
short time afterwards, that her husband has been set 
at liberty after six days of captivity, and that — the 
Emperor, having finished by accepting the capitu- 



250 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

lation at La Palud — the Duke has embarked at 
Cette and arrived safely at Barcelona, whence he 
proceeded to Madrid. 

In short, the Duke of Angouleme acted the part 
of a brave man. Once while he was making a recon- 
naissance of Pont-Saint-Esprit, somebody warned 
him that he was going too near. " I am somewhat 
short-sighted," he replied; "I like to see the enemy 
close by." The following passage occurs in Baron 
Louis de Viel-Castel's Histoire de la Restoration: 
" The simple and courageous conduct of the Duchess 
of Angouleme excited great enthusiasm in the royal- 
ist party. And even outside of that party, profound 
admiration and respect were felt for a Princess who, 
condemned from childhood to so many misfortunes, 
still displayed a bravery equal to the most varied 
tests. Napoleon was fond of saying that she was 
the only man in her family. The expression was 
much quoted by the enemies of the Bourbons. In 
the guise of a just compliment to the daughter of 
Louis XVI. it branded all her relatives as ridicu- 
lous and despicable. And besides, at that very 
moment the Duke of Angouleme was showing in 
another portion of the south that he was not 
unworthy of his noble companion." 

The energy displayed by her husband was a great 
consolation to the Princess. While in London she 
resided at the house of Louis XVIII. 's ambassador. 
"Madame the Duchess of Angouleme," wrote Count 
de La Chatre, " is much pleased to be with us. She 



LONDON 251 



sees little of society. Nearly all the English minis- 
ters have visited her, as also have their wives. The 
diplomatic corps came also, but each embassy sepa- 
rately, in accordance with Madame's wishes." 

The Princess was actively engaged in politics. 
She was, in realit}^ the emissary of Louis XVIII. 
With the assistance of Count de La Chatre and the 
Prince of Castelcicala, who was ambassador of the 
King of the Two Sicilies at London, she carefully 
watched over the interests of the royal cause. 

The attitude of the Duke of Orleans, who with 
his family was then in London, caused Louis 
XVIII. some misgivings. The Duke was vaguely 
suspected of cherishing ambitious designs. On the 
30th of March, the Prince of Castelcicala wrote to 
Count de Blacas: "As to the Duke of Orleans, 
without saying too much in regard to him — for I 
would like with all my heart to see him render 
service to the King and to be able to be serviceable 
to him myself, since he is the husband of my mas- 
ter's daughter, who is a truly good and virtuous 
Princess — it must be said that his way of blaming 
and censuring the government of the King attracts 
to him all people of like mind, which is not coming 
to the support of the government at all." And on 
the 1st of April, Count de Blacas wrote from Ghent 
to the Prince of Castelcicala: "The visit of the 
Duke of Orleans to London without asking the 
King's consent, and contrary to the way in which 
matters were evidently tending, disturbed me very 



252 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

much. An English journal, the Morning Chronicle^ 
spoke of the Duke as ' the only prince able to unite 
public opinion in France.' " 

Under these circumstances Louis XVIII. sum-' 
moned the Duke of Orleans to Ghent. He refused 
to go. He wrote to Prince de Talleyrand : " It is re- 
ported and, I trust, truly reported, that the King has 
made you his prime minister. If this is the case, 
I trust you will not permit anybody to summon the 
first Prince of the blood in such haste and without 
giving the slightest indication as to what awaits 
him or what he is expected to do. It is better for 
him to remain in retreat if he is wanted only to 
figure in a procession or a drawing-room." It could 
not be asserted positively that the Duke of Orleans 
exerted an influence antagonistic to Louis XVIII. , 
but it is certain that at London he did not share in 
the opinions of the Duchess of Angouleme, who per- 
fectly represented the politics of the court of Ghent. 

The daughters of two sisters. Queen Marie Antoi- 
nette and Queen Marie Caroline, the Duchess of 
Angouleme and the Duchess of Orleans, grand- 
daughters of the great Empress Maria Theresa, were 
cousins-german. They were equally pious, and in 
1814 and 1815 had entertained for each other in 
Paris a mutual regard founded on esteem and sym- 
pathy. The two Princesses were grieved at not 
finding themselves at harmony in ideas and politics 
at London. One of the objects of the Duchess of 
Angouleme in her mission to England was to keep 



LONDON 253 

track of the plans which the Duke of Orleans was 
vaguely accused of lajdng while under the protec- 
tion of the British government. She was called to 
Ghent towards the end of May, and eagerly re- 
sponded to the appeal. Louis XVIII. wished to 
thank her for and congratulate her upon her fine 
conduct at Bordeaux and her attitude in. London. 



XXIII 



GHENT 



THE Duchess of Angouleme was very well 
received at Ghent. Some days before her arri- 
val she was mentioned in some dithyrambs by M. de 
Chateaubriand, who in his capacity as Minister of 
the Interior, made on the 12th of May a report to the 
King on the condition of France, in which he spoke 
of the courage of the Princess : " What shall I say 
of the defence of Bordeaux by Madame? No; they 
were no longer Frenchmen — those men who could 
find it in their hearts to turn their arms against the 
daughter of Louis XVI. What! is it the orphan 
of the Temple, is it she who has suffered so much 
by us and because of us, she to whom we can never 
offer sufficient atonement, love, and respect, — is it 
she whom we have just now driven from her 
native land with cannon! And to install in her 
stead the murderer of the Duke of Enghien, the 
tyrant of France, and the devastator of Europe! 
Bullets have hissed around a woman, and that 
woman the daughter of Louis XVI. If she returns 
to France, the decrees against the Bourbons will be 
applied to her; in other words, she will mount the 
254 



GHENT 255 

scaffold, as her father and mother did. Amid her 
new perils she is the same as she showed herself to 
be in her youth, amid assassins and executioners. A 
true daughter of France, the descendant of Henri 
IV. and Maria Theresa, reared among troubles and 
tears, tested by prison, persecution, and danger, what 
reason has she not to hold life in contempt! " 

The literary minister was not less eloquent over 
the Princess's husband. "The heroic enterprise of 
Monseigneur the Duke of Angouleme," he adds, 
"takes rank among the most illustrious deeds of 
arms in our history. Wisdom and boldness in plan 
and courage in execution — all was there. How 
many misfortunes would Monseigneur the Duke of 
Angouleme have averted from our country if he 
could have got as far as Lyons! One of the rebel 
soldiers who saw this Prince under fire, said in 
admiration of his valor: 'One half -hour more, and 
we would have cried: "Long live the King! " ' " 

Notwithstanding this somewhat declamatory flat- 
tery, the Duchess of Angouleme was in great dis- 
tress. The events that were taking place about her 
did not raise her spirits. Louis XVIII. had been 
unable to remain in the north of France, and since 
the end of March had been a refugee at Ghent, a 
residence assigned to him by the King of the Low 
Countries. This place became the seat of a phantom 
government, a gathering place for emigres, a new 
Coblentz, but not so pleasant as the old one. Louis 
XVIII. , who would always have looked upon him- 



256 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

self as King, even in a barn or a stable, was as calm 
and majestic in the little Belgian city as in the cap- 
ital of France. The sovereign, who seemed like a 
monarch summering in the country, bore his troubles 
like a prince habituated to exile. Every day after 
dinner he went out in a coach-and-six, with his first 
gentleman of the bedchamber and his guards, merely 
to drive about Ghent. If he met the Duke of 
Wellington on his way, he gave him a condescend- 
ing nod as he passed. He did not alter his habits 
in the least, and etiquette at Ghent was the same as 
at the Tuileries. 

M. Guizot, who spent several days at this court 
in exile, said of it: "Two things remain strongly 
impressed on my memory, — the powerlessness and 
the dignity of the King. In the attitude and look 
of that old man, motionless and confined to his 
chair, there was a proud serenity in the midst of his 
feebleness, a tranquil confidence in the power of 
his name and the justice of his cause, that struck 
and touched me. . . . He gave me the impression of 
a rational, liberal-minded man, elegantly superficial, 
courteous to everybody and careful about appear- 
ances, not over-occupied in probing to the bottom of 
things, and about equally incapable of the mistakes 
that lose and those that secure the future of royal 
houses." 

There was the semblance of a ministry in which 
were Chancellor Dambray as Minister of Justice; 
General Clarke, Duke of Feltre, as Minister of 



GHENT 257 

War; Baron Louis as Minister of Finance; Count 
Beugnot, Minister of the Navy; Count Blacas, 
director of the King's household; and in the 
absence of Prince de Talleyrand, who was still at 
Vienna, Count de Jaucourt acted a^ Minister of 
Foreign Affairs. Twice a week at Ghent the official 
journal of royalty in exile was published. But this 
phantom of government could not conceal the mel- 
ancholy truth that the Bourbons would be unable to 
return to France without foreign aid. 

The habitual quiet of the city of Ghent was already 
disturbed by the noise of military preparations. 
English and Belgian recruits were drilled on the 
squares and streets. The Duke of Wellington came 
from time to time to review the troops. " Cannon- 
eers, contractors, and dragoons," says Chateau- 
briand, "brought in trains of artillery, droves of 
beeves, and steeds pawing the air, throwing their 
riders or leaving them hanging by the saddle girths ; 
vivandi^res came with sacks and children, carrying 
their husbands' guns. All this went on, without 
anybody knowing wh}', or taking the slightest 
interest in it, at the great rendezvous of destruction 
that Bonaparte had prepared for them. As to us 
emigrSs, we grew like the women of the city of 
Charles V., who, seated at windows, watched by 
means of little inclined mirrors the soldiers who 
passed by in the street." 

Some French troops were under arms at the camp 
of Alost, very near Ghent. They were under the 



258 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

command of General Maison. It appears that at one 
time there had been some idea of having them join in 
the military operations which the Allies were prepar- 
ing against France, but fortunately this project was 
soon abandoned. General Maison issued an order 
of the day to the effect that the soldiers who had 
arrived or should thereafter arrive with legiti- 
mist flags, should form a reserve corps, as the King 
did not wish to see them shedding the blood of 
their brothers. But they were to have the honor 
of bringing their sovereign back to his capital. On 
the plain of Walden, near Alost, the Duchess of 
Angouleme assisted at a review of two or three 
thousand French body-guards, volunteers, and stu- 
dents: "Ah!" said she, "I feel as if I were in a 
small France." 

What would these two or three thousand French- 
men have been able to do if foreigners had not taken 
into their own hands the task of conquering Bona- 
parte? This is the heavy thought that weighs on the 
patriotic heart of the Princess like humiliation, not to 
say remorse. She suffers equally because of the dis- 
sensions, intrigues, and pitiful jealousies, of which the 
little court at Ghent is the theatre. Her frank and 
lofty spirit groans when she sees the way in which 
people are abandoning her for Napoleon. In the 
words of Chateaubriand : " That epoch when frank- 
ness is everywhere lacking is like a weight on the 
heart. Everybody threw out a profession of faith 
like a foot bridge on which to cross the difficulty 



GHENT 259 

of the day, content to change his direction the diffi- 
culty once over. Infancy alone was sincere, for it 
was in its cradle. Bonaparte solemnly announces 
that he renounces the crown ; he departs and comes 
back again within nine months. Benjamin Con- 
stant prints his energetic protest against the tyrant, 
and in twenty-four hours he recants. Marshal Soult 
stirs up the troops against their former captain, and, 
after a few days in Napoleon's cabinet at the Tui- 
leries, he laughs at the pomposity of his proclama- 
tion and becomes a major-general at Waterloo; 
Marshal Ney kisses the King's hands, vows to bring 
Bonaparte to Paris in an iron cage, and then turns 
his entire command over to him. Alas ! And how 
stand matters with the King of France ? He declares 
that at the age of sixty he can die in no better way 
than in defence of his people, — and then he takes 
flight for Ghent. At this impossibility of truth in 
sentiments, and at this discord between words and 
actions, one feels disgust for the human race." In 
the words of the author of the GSnie du Christi- 
anisme, the Duchess of Angouleme might have been 
tempted to say: "At Ghent I remained as far as 
possible unengaged in intrigues, which were repug- 
nant to my nature and contemptible in my eyes, 
because I perceived under our own ruin, the ruin 
of society. My refuge from idle and credulous 
people was the enclosure of the B^guinage. I used 
to go to that little universe of women, veiled or 
wearing gimp-edged caps, and consecrated to various 



260 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Christian works, — a region of calm that lay, like an 
oasis in a desert, in the track of tempests." 

The Princess remained only a few days at Ghent. 
She left on the 4th of June, charged with an impor- 
tant mission to London. Its chief object was to 
negotiate with the English government for the send- 
ing of such arms and munitions as the western and 
southern provinces might require. If a favorable 
opportunity offered, the Princess was to go in per- 
son to the southern French coasts. While at Lon- 
don she learned the result of the battle of Waterloo 
and the second Restoration. She remained some 
time longer in England, and did not go to Paris 
till the 27th of July, 1815; that is to say, not 
till nineteen days after the return of her uncle, 
Louis XVIII. 

She left London with much more regret than 
she had left it fifteen months previously. 1815 was 
more gloomy than 1814. The second Restoration 
opened under circumstances much more unfavorable 
than those of the first. Political animosities reached 
an enormous pitch, and the foreign yoke pressed 
on the necks of the conquered in a way that, in 
some respects, was far more galling than it had 
been in the preceding year. In 1814, the Duchess 
of Angouleme was under illusions that no longer 
existed in 1815. She understood that her return 
to France had been possible only because the great 
nation had passed under the yoke. At that time 
party spirit was silent in the noble woman's heart. 



GHENT 261 

The termination of her exile seemed to her not less 
grievous than its beginning. Far from being joyous 
and elated with success, the daughter of Louis XVI. 
said to herself : " Of what good is it to live in the 
palace of the Tuileries, if my country is unhappy?" 
In her fate all was doomed to be melancholy and 
affliction. 



PART SECOND 

THE SECOND RESTORATION 



LOUIS XVIII. S RETURN 

THE second Restoration had just begun. People 
were far from being in the tender mood of the 
preceding year, — far from those royalist idylls and 
eclogues with which the return of the Bourbons was 
welcomed in 1814. With the exception of a few par- 
tisans of the egoistic sort that can be happy even 
among ruins if so be they may rebuild their fortunes 
there, all Frenchmen were plunged in gloom. As 
the imperialists suffered because of Waterloo, so the 
royalists groaned at seeing in the King's councils a 
regicide who had been Bonaparte's minister of police 
during the Hundred Days. Nowhere could good 
reason for exultation be found. 

Count Beugnot thus expresses himself in his 
Memoirs : " It is not without compassion that I 
read and hear it said on all sides that twice in suc- 
262 



LOUIS XVIIVS RETURN 263 

cession, namely in 1814 and in 1815, the House of 
Bourbon has been restored to us by foreigners. On 
the first occasion the sovereigns of Europe were not 
opposed to the Restoration, but they did not set it on 
foot, and, far from wishing it, they rather had doubts 
of its success. The second time, namely in 1815, 
the King left the city of Ghent without consulting 
them, and went straight to Paris and entered it, to 
the great astonishment of the foreign troops who 
took possession of the capital and its neighborhood, 
and understood very well how to profit from the 
recollection of their stupid indulgence during the 
foregoing year." The assertion of Count Beugnot 
is, perhaps, correct. Perhaps it is true that royalty 
was not brought back by foreigners. But what is at 
least as true is, that without the foreigners there 
would have been no Restoration whatever. It was 
the very coincidence between the defeat of the 
French and the return of the Bourbons that so 
fatally handicapped a government that would, under 
so many other circumstances have been respected, 
and reparative. It is for this reason that the Duch- 
ess of Angouleme wished so much that Napoleon 
should be repulsed by the French themselves instead 
of succumbing under the blows of foreign armies. 

Chateaubriand says : " The whole outlook was 
threatening for the second Restoration. Bonaparte 
came back at th^ head of four hundred Frenchmen. 
Louis XYIII. returned behind four hundred thou- 
sand foreigners ; he went from the sea of blood at 



264 THE DUCHESS OF ANG0ULE3IE 

Waterloo to Saint-Denis, as if going to his grave. . . . 
At the close of the Empire, Bonaparte went to Mal- 
maison, whereas, when the monarchy is beginning, 
we leave Ghent. Pozzo, who knew how little weight 
legitimacy had in high places, hastened to write 
Louis XVIII. a letter, urging him to leave and come 
quickly if he wished to be King before the place was 
taken ; it is to this letter that Louis XY III. owed his 
crown in 1815." 

Before returning to his capital, the King paid a 
brief visit to Saint-Denis, where he lodged in the 
abbey buildings. Chateaubriand says that it was 
with the greatest difficulty that the little girls whose 
fathers had belonged to the Legion of Honor could 
be kept from crying, " Long live Napoleon ! " The 
author of the Crenie du Christianisme entered the* 
church at the side. Part of a wall in the cloister 
had fallen, and the ancient abbey was lighted by a 
single lamp. " I prayed," he adds, " at the entrance 
to the vault into which I had seen Louis XVI. low- 
ered. I was filled with misgivings about the future, 
and I do not think that my heart was ever stirred with 
a pro founder or a more sacred religious grief. Then 
I rejoined His Majesty. On being shown into one 
of the chambers preceding that of the King, I found 
nobody present. Seated in a corner I waited. Sud- 
denly a door opened. Into the stillness of the cham- 
ber came vice leaning on the arm of crime, M. de 
Talleyrand supported by M. Fouche ; the infernal 
apparition passed slowly before me, entered the 



LOUIS XVIIVS RETURN 265 

King's apartment, and disappeared. Fouche came 
to swear fealty and homage to his lord ; the feal 
regicide knelt before the King and placed the hands 
that caused the head of Louis XVI. to fall between 
those of the brother of the martyred King ; the apos- 
tate bishop administered the oath." 

In his Souvenirs the late Duke of Broglie expresses 
himself not less bitterly : " The worthy rival of Bar- 
rere, Fouche, the ex-Oratorian (of Nantes), otherwise 
known as His Excellency the Duke of Otranto, was, 
like Barrere, a disgusting monster, but still more 
bloody, malicious, and filthy than Barrere himself — 
if that were possible — and committed his last trea- 
son, which was certainly one of the least of his sins, 
by taking his oath between the hands of the son of 
Saint-Louis and Louis XVI.'s brother, amid the 
applause of silly royalists. His patron in this ex- 
ploit was the former bishop of Autun, — the man 
who in succession doffed his frock on the downfall of 
the monarchy, his toga at the overthrow of the Direc- 
tory, and his coronet of Benevent at the close of the 
Empire, had kindly condescended to become the 
Prince de Talleyrand, Prime Minister of this most 
Christian King. 

'' How did this most Christian King look between 
these two unfrocked priests? I have not the slight- 
est idea. I have heard that on seeing them take 
carriage together, Pozzo di Borgo said smilingly to 
his neighbor : ' I would much like to hear what those 
lambs are saying.' " 



266 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Louis XVIII. was deeply impressed by a situa- 
tion so painful to the dignity of his person and the 
majesty of his throne. He did not desire that his 
return should be like a triumph, and that people 
should have it in their power to say that the King of 
France regarded Waterloo as a royal victory. When 
he re-entered Paris at three o'clock on the afternoon 
of the 8th of July, 1815, his niece was not in the car- 
riage with him as on the 3d of May, 1814. It is possi- 
ble that the daughter of Louis XVI. may not have 
desired to be seen associated with a policy the result 
of which was the selection, as a king's minister, of a 
man who had voted for the death of her father. We 
incline to the belief that this choice, which the aus- 
tere Princess looked upon as humiliating, was one 
cause of her decision to put off for some days her 
return to Paris. 

British and Prussian troops bivouacked with their 
wagons and caissons in the public gardens and 
squares, and before the porch of Notre-Dame ; loaded 
cannons were seen at the extremities of the bridges. 
An effort was made, through fear of revolutionary 
manifestations, to persuade the King that he ought 
to enter not by the populous quarter of the Faubourg 
Saint-Denis, but by the Clichy gate or the Champs- 
Elysdes. He refused to take this prudent advice, 
and the event showed him to be right, since no hos- 
tile demonstration took place during his entrance. 
He was not, as on the 8d of May, 1814, in an open 
coach, but in a closed carriage. The Count of 



LOUIS XVIIVS RETURN 267 

Artois and the Duke of Berry, each in the saddle, 
rode, one at the right and the other at the left of 
the carriage. Then followed a less numerous group of 
marshals and generals, among whom were Marshals 
Macdonald, Victor, Oudinot, Marmont, Clarke, Gou- 
vion Saint-Cyr, and Generals Maison and Dessoles. 
The escort was made up of body-guards, musketeers, 
light-horse, gendarmes of the royal household, mounted 
grenadiers, the Hundred Switzers, and some royal 
volunteers. No regiment was present from the regu- 
lar army. The national guard formed the double line. 
The King was received at the barrier Saint-Denis 
by the City Council. Count de Chabrol, prefect of 
the Seine till the 20th of March, and who had been 
reinstated in his office, delivered an address in 
which he said : " A hundred days have passed since 
that on which Your Majesty, forced to stifle your 
dearest affections, left your capital amid tears and 
public consternation." This was the first use of 
the expression " Hundred Days," which was destined 
to be adopted by history to designate the second 
reign of Napoleon. 

Louis XVni. answered : " I left Paris only with 
liveliest sorrow and the deepest emotion. Evidences 
reached me of the attachment of my good city. I 
return with deep affection ; I foresaw the ills with 
which it was threatened ; I wish to prevent and 
cure them." The procession moved forward and 
reached the Tuileries by way of the Faubourg Saint- 
Denis and the boulevards. 



268 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

In the words of Baron de Vitrolles, the King was 
received by an immense concourse of people and 
with universal satisfaction. If the procession of 
the foregoing year had seemed less enthusiastic, it 
was because the appearance of the sovereign was 
less expected. Louis XVIII. was perfectly satisfied 
with it and did not see the coming cloud. " On the 
same evening,*' adds M. de Vitrolles, "I had an audi- 
ence with Sauvo, the intelligent, and even imper- 
turbably intelligent, editor-in-chief of the Moniteur. 
But this time the changes had worn out his endur- 
ance to such a degree that it had become trans- 
formed into pleasantry. He came, very deferential 
to me, but revolted by the recantations he had been 
obliged to make without having an opportunity 
to pass by easy stages from one fashion to another. 
He told me that he could no longer hold his posi- 
tion, and asked that he should be retired. I raised 
him in his own eyes, and encouraged him by saying 
that his work was necessarily subject to the rapid 
course of events, and that, in submitting to official 
requirements, his personality would be left intact. 
He picked up again the chain and harness, and 
wore them for many years more." 

On the next morning the Moniteur was exceed- 
ingly spirited. It reported in the same old style 
the enthusiasm of the populace, the cheers, the 
refrain of Henri IV. ; the whole city spontaneously 
illuminated, the union of all parties in sentiments 
that thereafter were to be unalterable ; the devotion 



LOUIS XVIIVS BETUBN 269 

and fidelity to the monarch, the united vows of all, 
and all the efforts to restore liberty to France under 
a paternal government, and the happiness that would 
result from a peace that all Europe longed for. 

Notwithstanding all this verbiage, Louis XVIII. 
was ill at ease. How could he forget that an Eng- 
lish army was encamped in the Bois-de-Boulogne, at 
La Vallette, and the Chapelle-Saint-Denis, and that 
Paris was at the mercy of Prussians? Did he 
not know that an order of the day signed by the 
Duke of Wellington and Prince Bliicher had make 
General Muffling, a Prussian, governor of the capi- 
tal by placing the national guards and the police 
under his authority? Could he forget that the 
disappointment occasioned by his return to the Tui- 
leries was so great at General Bliicher's headquarters, 
that it had been decided to pay no attention to his 
royal person and to act as if he were still at Ghent ? 
When he looked from the palace windows, what 
did he see? Cannon planted at the Pont Royal, 
and directed even against the Tuileries, while can- 
noneers stood ready to touch them off; Prussian 
soldiers washing their soiled linen and coats in the 
courtyard of the chateau, and making the finials of 
the fences do duty for drying-rooms. " You yourself 
have seen it," said the King to Count Beugnot. 
" They have bivouacked in my courtyard of the 
Tuileries and planted cannon on the Pont Royal. 
What do they mean ? I can never bring myself to 
believe that the sovereigns have authorized any such 



270 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

proceedings." After these words he leaned his el- 
bows on a chest of drawers and buried his face in his 
hands. When recalling these melancholy memories, 
M. Beugnot exclaimed : " Old Brennus was right ! 
Vce Victisr' And in the present instant no dis- 
tinction of the parties was made; for in the eyes 
of the foreigners every Frenchman, beginning with 
the King, was a conquered man. 

Nevertheless, since the allied sovereigns had come 
to Paris, dissatisfied this time at not entering it 
before the King of France, it was necessary to re- 
ceive them with extreme courtesy. The Moniteur 
said: "Paris, July 11, 1815. — Their Royal and 
Imperial Majesties, the Emperor of Russia, the Em- 
peror of Austria, and King of Prussia, arrived at 
Paris yesterday evening. An hour after the arrival 
of Their Majesties, the King visited them. To-day 
the three monarchs went to the Tuileries, and, after 
an interview with His Majesty, they did Monsieur 
and Monseigneur the Duke of Berry, the honor of 
returning the visit which Their Highnesses had paid 
to Their Imperial and Royal Majesties. The capi- 
tal heard with the most lively satisfaction of the 
presence of these august sovereigns, for which all 
had prayed. Paris has not forgotten what in 1814 
it owed to the powerful protection and magnanimous 
accord that existed among them and the outcome 
of which was the happy Restoration. The capital 
earnestly hopes that the coming together of these 
monarchs, in the existing state of affairs, will soon 



LOUIS XVIIVS BETUBN 271 

lay the foundation of an "unalterable peace, and per- 
petually strengthen the bands which should unite 
France with Europe under a stable and legitimate 
government, to the end that Europe may at last 
see the accomplishment of the great purpose for 
which she took up arms." 

A nation is to be pitied when it has to use such 
language to its conquerors. Beyond question Louis 
XVIII. helped to soften the rigor of the conditions 
imposed on his subjects, and, had he not been in the 
Tuileries, France would have been still more unfor- 
tunate. But he had too much good sense not to 
understand all that the former conquerors of Europe 
were to be forced to endure. 

The royalist journals praised the King beyond 
measure. In reporting the fact that he had shown 
himself at one of the windows of the Tuileries to 
the people assembled in the garden, the Journal des 
DSbats said : " If it were possible to compare heaven 
and hell with each other, and if such a comparison 
were not in its very self an odious blasphemy, who 
could remember without a chill of horror, that at 
the same place where the celestial face of our father 
was then beaming with love for his people and with 
all the sincerity of a virtue not less than sublime, 
but lately had been seen, half-concealed behind his 
hateful satellites, that leaden-hued and tiger-eyed 
Corsican who never smiled save when he looked on 
carnage." The same journal — once the Journal 
de r Umpire — said of the vanquished Napoleon : 



272 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

"Bonaparte, whom but lately so many arms encir- 
cled, could not to-day find the hand even of a slave 
to do him the service of killing him. Baser than the 
effeminate Otho, more evil-starred than Nero, he 
could not yield himself to death, and is not now cer- 
tain of receiving even that poor boon. All those 
kings, all those princes like himself, whom we have 
seen figure with him in costumes and poses more or 
less theatrical and grotesque, have scattered like a 
troop of masqueraders on the day after the Carnival, 
throwing aside their crowns, their sceptres, and their 
dominoes." 

The way in which the French recanted made for- 
eigners smile. What a revenge they had for the 
(^cupation of their capitals, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, 
Vienna, Moscow ! How they gloried in the sight of 
that long-threatening nation now bleeding and humil- 
iated! Louis XYIII. owed his throne entirely to 
the victorious Allies and could not avoid thinking 
with regret of that glorious epoch when Louis XIV. 
grappled with combined Europe. He was proud 
of his high lineage, and it pained him to be depen- 
dent on sovereigns whose houses were of more recent 
origin than his own. 

This justice, also, should be done to Louis 
XVIII. He wished to moderate the passions of 
the ultra-royalists, who had completely forgotten the 
clemency shown in the words of Louis XVI. 's will. 
Blinded by hatred and party spirit, these reaction- 
aries longed to wreak vengeance on the men who 



LOUIS xvin:s betubn 273 

had terrorized them. Forgetting that they them- 
selves were French, they greatly preferred English- 
men, Russians, and Prussians to Bonapartists. The 
King had wisely reflected on the battle-field where 
so many Frenchmen met heroic deaths and, when 
afterwards, he went to Notre Dame he forbade the 
singing of the Te Deum. But, instead of following 
this noble example, many people exulted blatantly 
while the country mourned. The ministry, whom 
the royalists distrusted, did not dare to repress this 
effervescence of glee. Every evening crowds of 
people stationed themselves under the King's win- 
dows at the Tuileries, and struck up songs of vic- 
tory and joy. All sorts and conditions of women 
danced with men whom they did not know, and even 
with the foreign soldiers. If anybody dared to 
object to these demonstrations, which were certainly 
exceedingly strange, he rendered himself liable to 
rough usage. The dancing, which disturbed the 
sleep of Louis XVIII. , lasted into the night, and 
it was hard to clear the garden even after eleven 
o'clock. The theatres became hotbeds of agitation 
and disorder. Actors who had shown Bonapartist 
tendencies during the Hundred Days were insulted 
on the stage. Fleury and Mademoiselle Mars were 
jeered at and forced to cry: "Long live the King! " 
before being permitted to go on with their parts. 
France was divided against itself at a time when the 
invading armies numbered one million two hundred 
thousand men, without counting two hundred and 



274 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

fifty thousand who were stationed on the opposite 
banks of the Rhine. Some Frenchmen looked on 
Waterloo as a victory for the French, and others 
considered it a defeat. Already were seen the be- 
ginnings of an obstinate struggle between the two 
rival nations that one and the same country con- 
tained. Such was the lamentable spectacle offered 
to the Duchess of Angouleme when she came to the 
Tuileries. We have said that the daughter of Louis 
XVI. would nevermore know joy on earth. At the 
very time when, as a princess, she should have been 
happy, she, as a Frenchwoman, was most deeply, 
wounded in her patriotism and her pride. 



II 

THE EETUEN OF THE DUCHESS 

THE Duchess of Angouleme arrived at Paris on 
the 27th of July, 1815, escorted by the Duke of 
Berry and a number of generals. After receiving 
the respects of the court, she showed herself at one 
of the windows of the Tuileries and was heartily 
applauded by the crowd. On the 1st of August, the 
Journal des Dehats spoke as follows : " Yesterday 
the people of Paris gave Madame the Duchess of 
Angouleme the same evidences of their devotion, 
respect, and heartfelt joy, that they had given the 
King five days before. An innumerable multitude 
went to the Tuileries and gathered under the win- 
dows of the palace. There, to cries of *Long live 
the King,' 'Long live the Bourbons!' and 'Long live 
the Duchess of Angouleme,' were united transports of 
admiration for the Antigone of Courland, the heroine 
of Bordeaux, the woman strong and great in all 
kinds of adversity. Then followed all varieties of 
dancing, and the festivities lasted till evening. 
Meantime bands of young people, most of whom 
were royal volunteers who had come together in the 
morning, paraded the boulevards under the royal 

275 



276 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

ensign, and filled the air with shouts of joy and vic- 
tory. Some evil-disposed persons who tried to 
lessen the effect of this enthusiasm by getting up a 
counter-demonstration, came very near suffering at 
the hands of an indignant public." 

The enthusiastic flattery lavished upon her hardly 
moved the Princess at all, for she continually re- 
flected: "All these things were said to me before 
the Hundred Days." When disaster left her for a 
time some rest, she recalled her past exiles, and was 
filled with apprehensions of others still in store for 
her. She seldom smiled. In the palace she felt as 
in an inn which she soon must leave. She had no 
illusions about either men or things, and distrusted 
many people. And in this she was right; for the 
ministers apparently most devoted to Louis XVIII. 
were soon to become the most obsequious courtiers 
of Louis-Philippe. 

The Princess thought it undignified that Talley- 
rand and Fouch^ should be in the ministry. She 
was obliged to keep her feelings to herself, and 
suffered on account of the compromises that royalty 
thought it necessary to make. Thus her attitude 
was constrained, and her face, which was almost 
always sombre, bore painful evidence of her feelings. 

The situation was dolorous even for royalists. All 
people of sense and probity deplored the reactionary 
movements, entitled the White Terror, which had 
been made at Nimes, Uz^s, Avignon, and Marseilles. 
The straight-forward and upright Duke of Angou- 



THE RETURN OF THE DUCHESS 277 

leme, on his return from Spain, had remained for a 
time in the south of France, where he earnestly tried 
to establish a policy of moderation. But the passions 
of people about him impeded him in his pacificatory 
labors. His intentions were misunderstood, and an 
attempt was made to get him to abandon the service 
of Louis XVIII. According to some slanderers, the 
Duke aimed at nothing short of separating the south 
from the kingdom and making a distinct state of it. 
Later on, some even went so far as to say that the 
appearance of white and green cockades was the first 
sign of the projected rebellion. These absurd rumors 
even reached the Duchess of Angouleme and justly 
irritated her. 

In some respects the ministerial policy met with 
the approbation of the Princess. She looked upon 
acts of severity as necessary, but it seemed more than 
strange to her that the list of proscribed men should 
be drawn up and signed by Fouche, who had been 
minister of the imperial police during the Hundred 
Days. The list of the 24th of July ordered the arrest 
and production before the councils of war of nineteen 
persons, namely : Ney, Labedoy^re, the elder and 
younger Lallemands, Drouet d'Erlon, Lefebvre Des- 
nouettes, Ameil, Bra3^er, Gilly, Mouton-Duvernet, 
Grouchy, Clausel, Laborde, Debelle, Bertrand, 
Drouet, Cambronne, Lavalette, and Rovigo. Then 
followed a list of men to be exiled, including 
Marshal Soult, General Exelmans, the Duke of Bas- 
sano, Carnot, General Lamarque, Count Regnault 



278 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

de Saint-Jean d'Ang^ly, Baron Lelorgne d'ldeville, 
and others. M. de Viel-Castel says in his Histoire 
de la Restauration : "As to the terms used in this 
order to designate these proscribed men, everything 
in them was offensive. There was a studied design 
to treat them with contempt. Some, like Marshals 
Ney and Soult, were designated merely by their 
family names ; others, like the Dukes of Bassano and 
Rovigo, by ostentatiously omitting their titles ; and 
sometimes the names were incorrectly spelled. In a 
a word, information as to the personal position of the 
proscribed was so defective that M. de Lavalette, 
who had not been in military service for fifteen 
years, was among those who were produced before 
the councils of war. Probably never before was 
there seen in a similar act such an accumulation 
of blunders, confusions, and reckless neglect of 
equity and the merest decency. It seemed as if, in 
drawing up that order, Fouch^ thought that he was 
still at work for the Committee of Public Safety. 
. . . From one end of it to the other, it bore the 
impress of the truculent levity and revolutionist 
ways of its author." 

The era of vengeance was inaugurated. It began 
with the execution of General de Lab^doy^re. The 
Duchess of Angouleme, who thought it impossible 
to secure pardon for the unfortunate general, with- 
drew without regret from Paris, where residence 
at the Tuileries — that vestibule of the scaffold to 
her parents — had become ever-increasingly painful. 



THE RETUBN OF THE DUCHESS 279 

On the 13th of August, 1815, after having been 
present at the votive procession of Louis XIII. at 
Notre Dame, she went to Bordeaux by way of 
Versailles and Chartres. She reached the city on 
the 19th, having rejoined her husband on the road. 

The royal pair had a magnificent reception. A 
small and very choice pavilion which had been 
erected on the shore of the Gironde, served the 
Princess as a resting-place after her journey, and 
there she was visited by the ladies of Bordeaux, who 
gave her a splendid dress in exchange for which they 
asked her own, to be divided into small pieces that 
should be kept as relics. At two o'clock in the 
afternoon the Duke and Duchess arrived at the 
Bastide, and crossed the water in a gondola decor- 
ated with flags, amid the roar of artillery from all 
the ships in the roadstead, the ringing of bells, and 
the acclaims of the vast multitude that had as- 
sembled on the quays and crowded the boats with 
which the river was covered. 

All the houses were decorated with white flags 
and hung with verdure. The cortege proceeded 
along the quay as far as the gate Chapeau-Rouge. 
At the head of the procession was a detachment of 
the legion of Maria Theresa, followed by a number 
of men and women bearing banners on which were 
portraits of the King, the Princes, and the Duchess 
of Angoul^me, the heroine of the fete. Then one 
saw a troop of children dressed in Henri IV. cos- 
tume, and maidens in white, carrying bouquets of 



280 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

lilies. After these was the carriage so impatiently 
expected. Drawn by men, it came slowly along in 
the midst of enthusiastic shouts, and was followed 
by the Duke of Angouleme on horseback. Having 
descended, the Place Dauphine and passed through 
the allies d'Albret, the procession entered the cha- 
teau grounds through the larger garden gate. It 
was a triumph. 

In the evening the Prince and Princess went to 
the Grand Theatre, where the Heritiers MicTiaud, 
and a vaudeville composed for the occasion by a 
young Bordelais named M. Bougld, were rendered. 
The title of the vaudeville was Enfin les Voila ! and 
it was encored by the audience three times. 



Ill 

GENEKAL DE LABEDOYERE 

ON the day when the Duchess of Angouleme 
entered Bordeaux in triumph amid the tumul- 
tuous applause of the royalists, the Bonapartists 
in Paris were in consternation because of the 
execution of General Labedoyere, a man for whom 
they had the greatest admiration. His trial, sym- 
bolically summed up, as one may say, the dissen- 
sions which were at once the weakness and shame 
of France. In. that act were reviewed all changes 
,of opinion, all political cruelty, and all the irony of 
fortune. 

What pictures must have passed before the mental 
vision of the accused as he lay in prison ! What a 
drama had been played within a few weeks ! What 
incidents! What unaccountable changes! All was 
like the scenes of a tragedy now dazzling and now 
lugubrious. In imagination the prisoner recalled 
that 7th of March when, at the head of his regi- 
ment, the Seventh of the line, he was on the road 
to Grenoble, shouting, " Long live the Emperor! " and 
then : " Soldiers, who loves me follows me ! " — that 
day on which Napoleon threw himself into his arms 

281 



282 THE DUCHESS OF ANOOULEME 

and cried with emotion : " Colonel, 'tis yon Avho reseat 
me on the throne! " and the army hailed the colonel 
of the Seventh as liberator and saviour. He recalled 
the honors rained upon him during the Hundred 
Days: the rank of a general of brigade, promotion 
to the grade of general of division, and then a seat 
in the Chamber of Peers. Would that Napoleon 
had established himself firmly on the throne, and 
then, who could tell how high the fortunes of that 
general at twenty-nine might not have soared ! But 
even in full glory he had a presentiment of his fate. 
During the Hundred Days he told his friends more 
than once that he was to fall victim to his devotion 
to the Emperor; he said the same thing to his 
mother ; he had left his wife in dread of what might 
happen. 

Then came before him the awful day of Waterloo, 
on which he was one of the last to leave the battle- 
field ; and then that stormy session in the Chamber 
of Peers on the 22d of June at which he had spoken 
those prophetic words : " If the Chambers desert the 
Emperor, all is lost. In a few days the enemy will 
be in Paris. Then what will become of our liber- 
ties, what will become of those who have embraced 
the cause of the nation? As to myself, my fate is 
not doubtful; I shall be shot." He knew well that, 
accordingly as affairs turned out, he would be 
deemed a hero or a traitor. 

After the overthrow of all his hopes, Lab^doy^re 
still retained some illusions. He imagined that his 



GENERAL BE LABEDOYEBE 283 

life would be spared. He believed that Article 12 
of the capitulation of Paris on the 3d of July would 
be lived up to, and this article covered those who 
had taken part in the acts of the Hundred Days. 
Before the re-entrance of the King, he had received 
from Fouch^ offers of money to leave France. He 
refused them, without comprehending his position, 
and with inexplicable imprudence he had remained 
at Clermont, and, though attainted by the ordinance 
of the 24th of July, he had set out for Paris, there 
to say farewell to his family. On the 2d of August 
he was arrested by a police officer who recognized 
him in the diligence on the road from Clermont to 
Paris. 

A great outcry was raised in legitimist salons 
against a man who seemed to those who frequented 
them all the more criminal in that he belonged to 
one of the most ancient of French aristocratic fami- 
lies. It w^as said that his fate was decided out of 
his own mouth. Was it not he who told the Cham- 
ber of Peers on the 22d of June: "I ask that 
traitors shall be judged and punished in such a way 
as to terrify those who would imitate them; that 
their names be made infamous ; that their houses be 
razed, their families proscribed and never again 
permitted to set foot on French soil." Charles de 
Lab^doyere was a count; he had as brothers-in-law 
MM. de Damas and de £^hastellux; his family 
were entirely of royalist stock. His descent, it was 
said, ought to be looked upon as an aggravation and 



284 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

not as an excuse. If mercy should be shown to him, 
no one could be condemned. The great ladies of 
the Faubourg Saint-Germain were, for the most part, 
furiously enraged. A young woman of high society 
who, in order to calm her ire a little, had been 
informed that there was no manner of doubt that 
the accused would be convicted and executed, 
replied : " It really seems so, but you will see that 
he will be spared for some reason or other." 

Meantime there was a woman who was deeply 
interested in the prisoner's fate, and who, since she 
despaired of saving his life, made prodigious efforts 
to save at least his soul. This woman was a for- 
eigner, a Russian, who because of her excessive 
mysticism suggested the project of the Holy Alli- 
ance to the Emperor Alexander, whose conscience 
and policy she directed. This was the Baroness 
de Krudener. She was a very odd woman who, 
while yet in her first youth, had distinguished her- 
self by a sort of fanaticism for Garat, the singer, 
before whom she knelt in public, — she, the same 
feminine author who execrated Napoleon, perhaps 
because he laughed at her romance Valerie, and 
who, by assuming Biblical modes of speech and Bib- 
lical allusions, as if she were a prophetess, exercised 
a mysterious influence over the Czar. Struck by a 
prophecy in which she had predicted to him the 
chief political events of the last three years, the 
Czar gave her a valuable bracelet, the medallion of 
which represented an open eye ; it was his own left 



GENERAL BE LABEDOYERE 285 

eye, which he had caused to be painted after nature, 
according to an old Russian notion that the way in 
which an absent person is thinking is reflected in 
the image of his eye. She wore this bracelet as a 
talisman so long as she was on good terms with 
him whom she called the White Angel sometimes, 
and sometimes the Saviour of All. 

In the salon of Madame de Stael, Madame de 
Krudener had met Charles de Lab^doy^re when he 
was hardly more than a youth, and had been inspired 
by him with a sentiment which he did not at all 
return, and which, possibly, may have been nothing 
more than mystical love. This handsome young 
man of nineteen had strongly affected her, and 
when, ten years afterwards, he was about to die so 
tragic a death, she spoke admiringly of him to the 
Emperor Alexander. "My brother in Christ," said 
she to the Czar, "they will not spare poor Lab^- 
doyere. Ah! could you but have seen him in his 
beauty ten years ago, how you would have admired 
him ! How admirable he was ! His noble head ; his 
expressive features; his fiery mien; his splendid 
hair; his sensitive heart; his brilliant wit! And 
this, all this, will soon be nothing but a dim mem- 
ory! Let us pray, let us pray that Divine mercy 
will receive him to bliss eternal! " 

The bibliophile Jacob, " Paul Lacroix," that much- 
lamented writer, gives in his painstaking work on 
Madame de Krudener, details, not previously pub- 
lished, of the part played by that extraordinary 



286 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

woman in the pathetic drama which ended in the 
execution of the young general. Thanks to her, 
the general secured an interview with his wife 
in prison. At the close of this first interview 
Madame de Lab^doy^re wrote to the Czar's Egeria: 
''Ah, Madame, how sad I was when I saw my 
unhappy husband once more. Nevertheless, his 
calmness and his noble tranquillity gave me heart 
again. It is impossible for anybody to be more 
resigned to any fate that may await him. To 
me he seemed sublime. Ah! Madame, how happy 
should I be if my prayers should be blessed by 
heaven and it should deign to restore to me the 
father of my child! This will be the last day of 
the investigation. The council meets on Monday. 
Judge, Madame, of my affliction! I cannot breathe. 
. . . For twenty-four hours my babe has not taken 
the breast. It hurts me cruelly to look at him. . . . 
I cannot restrain my grief. I seek in vain to inter- 
est the allied sovereigns in my woes. I cannot 
even reach them. Their protection, however, would 
give me so much hope! I have done my best to 
send a letter to His Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, 
whose generosity is so well known and inspires con- 
fidence in the heart of every Frenchman, but I do 
not know whether it has reached him and whether 
His Majesty has condescended to read it." 

Madame de Krudener's answer, which bears date 
of the 11th of August, 1815, is a sort of sermon. 
It opens as follows: "Would that I could console 



GENERAL BE LABEDOYERE 287 

you, you dear and unhappy woman ! But this work 
is not for man. I point you to the only means by 
which you can be released from this deep sorrow. 
It is God and God alone, Madame ; Christ the Sav- 
iour, the Mediator, the Restorer; Christ, the Infinite 
Love, the Ocean of Charity. . . . Implore the liv- 
ing God! Cast yourself on His breast, and seek no 
aid from human support forbidden by His Holy Law, 
since He says: 'Accursed be he who leans on the 
arm of flesh.' " 

The whole letter was nothing but one long 
preachment. Madame de Krudener spoke perpetu- 
ally about the eternal salvation of the accused, but 
said not a word about his temporal salvation. She 
added: "I have pointed out your great duties. 
Woman on earth has but tears; the true woman is 
the spouse of eternity to which she should be bound 
with ties sublime. There is the marriage the 
Church affords us ; every other is naught but adul- 
tery." The letter — or rather the sermon — ended 
as follows : " Be truly great by weeping at the foot 
of the cross, by giving your whole heart to God, and 
by saying to yourself: 'My business is to instruct 
my husband, not to deceive him ; to show him the 
bitter fruits of a life given over to worldliness. ' . . . 
I have spoken the truth to you. I do not know 
what words I have used. Charity is my duty. It 
is by turns tender and severe. I am a Christian 
and, while humbling my nothingness at the feet of 
Christ, I have the boldness of loftiest hopes, for I 



288 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

know His profound compassion, and I trust that 
your husband may be saved if he will but cast him- 
self on the breast of the Saviour who rejects no 
one." 

Madame de Krudener's letter plunged Madame de 
Lab^doy^re into deep dejection. She read and 
re-read it, pondering over those words : " I trust that 
your husband may be saved." She could not believe 
that it referred only to the salvation of his soul. 
She longed to have his body rescued also. 

Meantime, Madame de Krudener had appeared in 
mourning garb at the prison wicket, and, laying 
down a Bible, insisted that the book should be given 
to Lab^doyere on her behalf. Then the general 
wrote her the following letter: "Madame, I cannot 
refuse myself the happiness of thanking you for the 
interest you have taken in my unhappy wife. You 
have appreciated her goodness and her virtues, and 
you certainly wished to comfort her. Do not take 
it amiss, Madame, that I thank you for it. I appre- 
ciate the book you sent me. There are times in life 
when one specially loves to be absorbed in the great 
and sublime thoughts that religion affords. I trust 
I shall profitably employ the brief moments still at 
my disposal." 

Charmed with such pious talk, Madame de Kru- 
dener replied in the tone of a parson: "I thank 
you, sir, for that letter, which turns my bitter tears 
to tears of sweetness. . . . How lofty a thing is 
the death of the Christian praying to Christ! It 



GENEBAL BE LABEDOYEBE 289 

allies him to all the great men, who have been the 
splendor of the ages ; the Augustines, the Jeromes, 
the Tertullians, the F^nelons, the Saint Francises, 
all those who hold names most dear to humanity, 
are associated with him. And what made the 
Bayards, what made men like Gustavus Adolphus, 
the greatest captains of their times? . . . Would 
that I could see you and that my accents could 
express the compassion I have found at the foot of 
the Cross ! I do not leave you. . . . My hopes are 
immortal. In death the Christian begins life, while 
the unbeliever begins only a round of frightful tor- 
ments. May the Saviour in whom is all my hope, 
may Christ, may the living God, bless you." 

The accused was produced before the council of 
war on the 14th of August. The number of specta- 
tors was very large. Among them were the Prince 
of Orange, the Prince Royal of Wurtemberg, Prince 
William of Prussia, the foreign ambassadors, and 
many great ladies who were drawn to the trial by 
morbid curiosity. The attitude of Labedoy^re was 
calm and full of dignity. " If my life alone were at 
stake," said he, "I, who before now have led brave 
men to death, would meet it myself like a brave 
man, nor would I seek to delay your sentence ; but 
my honor is assailed along with my life, and that 
honor does not belong to me alone. A woman, a 
model of all the virtues, a son in his cradle, have 
the right to demand that I consider it, and I would 
that they should hereafter be able to say that, 



290 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

despite the blow that befell me, my honor was 
unsullied. I was deceived myself as to the true 
interests of France; glorious memories, ardent love 
of country, illusions, misled me, but the very great- 
ness of the sacrihces I made in breaking the dearest 
of ties, shows that no self-interest entered into my 
conduct." 

The accused then gave some explanation of the 
state of opinion at the time of the return from Elba : 
" If my voice may have the solemnity of the feeble 
accents of the dying," said he, "what I am about to 
submit to your consideration will, perhaps, not be 
without service to my country. In 1814 the nation 
and the army left Napoleon to his fate; the family 
of the Bourbons was received back with enthusi- 
asm. How did that situation come to be changed ? 
Through the words and actions of faithful servants, 
of friends blinded by personal interests, by false 
ideas, by misapprehension of the state of France." 
At these words the president cried out: "You are 
accused of a crime; it is not yours to discuss the 
motives that led you to its commission. The council 
cannot pronounce on motives. In its eyes there is 
no such thing as guiltless crime." — "Do you wish 
me," replied the general, "to deny well-known 
facts, and actions which I avow ? My only defence 
is in the examination of the political causes that led 
me to the deeds for which I now answer before you. 
You do not wish to hear me? I shall not insist 
upon it." Then he expressed his desire that all the 



GENERAL BE LABEBOT^BE 291 

French should be but a single family around the 
throne. "Probably," said he, in closing his address, 
"it will not be for me to witness that grand and 
touching sight. Already have I shed my blood for 
my country, and now I shall die resigned and calm, 
trusting that my death, preceded by the acknowl- 
edgment of my error, will not be wholly useless, 
and that memory of me shall never waken a painful 
thought ; that my son, when old enough to serve his 
country, shall not blush for his father, and that his 
native land will not reproach him with his name." 

The accused was unanimously condemned to 
death. "Monsieur Bexon," said he to his counsel, 
" I did as they wished ; they stifled my defence, but 
none the less do I die defending myself, shot before 
the eyes of the allied sovereigns who signed the 
treaty of Paris." On the following day he received 
from Madame de Krudener a writing entitled Medi- 
tation^ which, after giving a description of the 
earthly Paradise, ended thus : " O, Splendor of the 
Primitive Destiny of the King of the Earth, tell us, 
instruct us ; make the captive blush who, though in 
chains, still thinks of earthly affairs and is puffed up 
with pride when he has lost all, and all things accuse 
him ; who is proud of having availed himself of lib- 
erty to resist God, to betray Him, to forsake Him, to 
make unto himself shameless idols, or sing praises 
to his passions and to look with longing upon vani- 
ties invented by the Enemy of us all." 

Application for an appeal was refused, notwith- 



292 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULtME 

standing an eloquent address by the lawyer, Mau- 
guin. "I expected the refusal," said the condemned 
man. "I have received a letter informing me that 
Baroness de Krudener has been authorized to visit 
me. Thank the lady, in my behalf, for all she 
wished to do, but I do not wish to see her. I will 
see nobody but my old friend Abb^ Delondelle." 
This ecclesiastic, who was chaplain of the Carmelite 
ladies of the rue Saint-Jacques, had been the gen- 
eral's early teacher. 

The condemned man wrote to his mother: "I 
send by M. Delondelle, who is good enough to be 
with me during my last moments, a few words 
expressive of my affection and respect, and the 
regret I feel for the sorrow I have caused you and 
the misfortunes I have made you undergo. He 
comes to ask your blessing for me, and with it I 
know I shall die more peacefully. . . . Adieu, 
dear mother ; bless your son once more, and forgive 
him." He wrote also the following letter to his 
mother-in-law, the Countess of Chastellux: "Re- 
ceive, my dear mother, the last farewells of a son 
who was never quite worthy of your Georgine, but 
who is dying, and at the moment of his death 
ventures to speak of his appreciation of all your 
goodness. Take care of my dear Georgine; she 
loves me, and her sorrow will be great; but your 
care and that of my excellent sister Gabrielle and 
all the family and my little angel, will bring her 
some consolation. Pardon me all the ill I have 



GENERAL BE LABEDOYERE 293 

done you. Pray for me, and weep for an unfortu- 
nate man who, in his early years, loses so many 
sources of happiness." 

What could be more touching than the unhappy 
general's letter to his dearly loved wife, so soon to 
be his widow? "Receive, my adorable Georgine, 
my last adieu! My latest sigh will be for thee. 
Dear friend, how grieved I am over all the misfor- 
tunes I have brought on thee, and thy unhappy 
family, and on mine ! I had hoped, dear friend, to 
make thee happy. The thought of the sorrow I 
have caused thee is sadder than the thought of 
death. I shall die a Christian; that will console 
thee. Think on thy child, thy mother, thy sisters ; 
console thyself, dear Georgine; 'tis a sacred duty. 
Adieu!" 

Following is the general's will, which we have 
received from his grandson, Count Jean de Labe- 
doy^re : " This is my will. As a testimony of 
friendship I give my watch-chain and all the seals 
to Charles de Flahaut. I beg Jules de Sayve to 
accept my watch as a last token of remembrance; 
I desire that the picture of my dear Georgine, which 
I shall wear till the moment of death, be transmitted 
to my son. I confide it to my excellent second 
mother, and ask her not to give it to him till he can 
comprehend all that it means. May the words 
engraved on the clasp of its chain be ever sacred to 
him! May he forgive his father for having for a 
moment forgotten them! I give my brother Henri 



294 THE DUCHESS OF ANOOUL^ME 

the ring I wear on the fourth finger of my right 
hand; it contains some of my little George's hair. 
May he protect the boy, and sometimes speak to him 
about his father! I give Henri de Chastellux the 
large portrait of my good, my too good, Georgine. 
Let him watch over and console her, and may he 
sometimes remember his old friendship for me! I 
beg my brother Henri to select two of the best 
works in my library, and I ask that he and my sister 
Ambroisine d'Estampes will each accept one of 
them. I beg my dear mother to accept the picture 
of my little angel and to transfer to him the tender- 
ness she had for me. — Paris, the 19th of August, 
1815. — Chaeles de Labbdoyere." 

While making his will, the condemned man was 
under no delusion in regard to his fate. One alone, 
his unhappy wife, still was able to hope against hope. 
Towards three o'clock in the afternoon, when the 
King was about to enter his carriage in the court- 
yard of the Tuileries to take his usual airing, a 
woman dressed in black threw herself on her knees 
before him, weeping bitterly and crying : " Pardon ! 
pardon!" It was Madame de LabMoyere. — "Ma- 
dame," said Louis XVIIL, "I understand your feel- 
ings and those of your family, and never was I more 
grieved to refuse a request. " The poor woman fell 
in a swoon. 

Two hours later, about five o'clock, another 
woman in deep mourning, stood in the courtyard 
waiting for the King's return. It was the con- 



GENEBAL BE LAB£:D0YEBE 295 

demned man's mother. She tried to approach the 
carriage, but orders were given to prevent her from 
doing so. Louis XVIII. saw her at a distance and 
made an impatient gesture, muttering at the same 
time: "No pardon! " 

Half an hour afterwards, in the plain of Grenelle, 
General de Lab^doyere knelt to receive the blessing 
of his old preceptor, the Abb^ Delondelle, and then, 
rising calmly, stepped toward the gendarmes who 
were about to shoot him, and, pointing to his breast, 
said: "My friends, do not miss I" and, refusing to 
have his eyes bandaged, gave them the order to fire. 
The day of execution was the 19th of August, 1815. 

When Madame de Krudener learned the end of 
the drama, she shed abundant tears. " O my God, 
how I thank Thee! " she cried; "Thou hast saved a 
soul while men were wreaking vengeance on a mis- 
erable body ! Thine be the glory ! Thine the glory, 
God of love and mercy ! " 



IV 



roue HE 



THE Ducliess of Angouleme left Paris on the 
15th of August, — that is to say, four days 
before the execution of the unhappy LabMoy^re, — 
and returned on the 11th of September. Her jour- 
ney was a continuous ovation. It might ahnost be 
said that the daughter of Louis XVI. advanced 
under triumphal arches. On the 5th of September 
the Moniteur quoted the following notice from the 
Indieateur de Bordeaux : ^' September 2. — Her Royal 
Highness, Madame, the Duchess of Angouleme, 
set out at six o'clock yesterday morning. Never 
shall we forget Madame's too brief sojourn in the 
faithful city that so ardently desired to see the 
daughter of kings again, and which nothing but her 
auspicious promise to live here always could ever 
console for her recent departure. All Her Royal 
Highness 's time has been spent in wiping away the 
tears which the new misfortunes that have pursued 
her have caused us to shed. She knew that her 
presence was a soothing balm for the wounds of the 
heart. The reveille at daybreak was not merely for 
the national guard. Everybody wished to see the 
296 



FOUCHE 297 

object of universal regret once more. The proces- 
sion slowly proceeded through a crowd, as it did a 
fortjiight ago; but at that time all hearts thrilled 
with delight, and joy was depicted on every counte- 
nance. But yesterday all faces wore another expres- 
sion, — that of melancholy, of grief. Barely had 
the population strength enough to breathe unani- 
mous blessings which resembled matin prayers, 
which are never so fervent as when they are borne 
upward by hope." 

Everywhere the Duchess of Angoul^me was wor- 
shipped as an idol. At Toulouse, which she entered 
on the 2d of September, two lines of poplars, plane- 
trees, and acacias, carefully transplanted, shaded 
the fa^ades^ of the houses with foliage and made 
masses of green. The horses were detached from 
her carriage^ and forty young men disputed the 
privilege of dragging it. Groups of maidens dressed 
in white, girdled with green scarfs and crowned 
with lilies, preceded and surrounded the coach and 
strewed flowers in its path. At the theatre on the 
5th of September, General Ricard announced to 
the audience that the Spanish army, which had 
theretofore been in occupation of a part of the 
department of Basses-Pyrenees, had crossed the 
frontier and was already on the march. This news 
produced all the effect of a theatrical situation, and 
was received with shouts of "Long live the King! 
Long live the Duke of Angouleme ! Long live 
Madame ! " On the next day the Princess visited 



298 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

the Capitol, where she received the respects of the 
Academy of Floral Games. The Toulousains brought 
out all their inventive genius and taxed their inge- 
nuity to receive her with the very refinement of 
flattery. As she passed the church du Taur, two 
doves, which appeared to descend from the sky, 
deposited in her lap a crown of lilies. 

At the hour when the Duchess of Angouleme was 
preparing to re-enter Paris, something poisoned the 
pleasure she would otherwise have felt at being 
there again, and this was the reflection that she 
would once more find a regicide among her uncle's 
ministers. At a time when a gory reaction had 
been inaugurated by the execution of the unfortu- 
nate Lab^doyere, it was surely by some irony of fate 
that the proscription lists should be made up by a 
terrorist of the Convention. The Princess was a 
woman of conviction and as strongly attached to her 
political as to her religious faith, and consequently 
she could not familiarize herself with this idea. 

Meantime the credit of Fouche, like that of 
Talleyrand, began to receive some heavy shocks. 
"The Duchess of Angouleme is coming," said the 
King to Baron de Vitrolles, " and the dismissal of 
Fouchd would be a fine bouquet to give her." 
— "Where should we be. Sire, if the policy of the 
State should be reduced to bouquets ? " " The King 
said no more," adds M. de Vitrolles; "but on the 
next day, His Majesty of his own accord returned 
to the immediate dismission of the ministers as if he 



FOUCHE 299 

wished to persuade me. I readily saw what kind of 
influence was being exerted on the King. The pre- 
fect of police, urgent to have done with the minister 
whom he wished to replace, pushed matters beyond 
bounds and seriously disturbed the King about his 
personal safety. Matters even went so far as to 
make him think that the Duke of Otranto was 
strongly suspected of a conspiracy to have him and 
his family murdered in the Tuileries. When I 
insisted that for every reason of policy and dignity 
he should not permit himself to be drawn into hasty 
action, his voice changed. ... ' But, meanwhile, ' 
said he, ' I must be taken care of. ' " 

In reality, from the very first day the presence of 
Fouch^ in the ministry had weighed like a night- 
mare on the conscience of the King. 

In speaking of the conduct of Fouch^ while he 
was in the ministry of the second Restoration, 
M. Guizot says in his Memoirs: "A little less 
hurry and a little more steadiness would have 
spared Louis XVIII. a sad scandal. He had only 
to wait a few days, and there would have been no 
need for him to run the risk, not of revolution and 
disastrous disturbances, but of a prolongation of 
disorders and alarms. Necessity imposes itself on 
nations just as it does on individuals. The neces- 
sity of which Fouche made use in order to become 
one of Louis XVIII. 's ministers was in a great 
degree factitious and temporary ; that which brought 
Louis XVIII. back to the Tuileries was natural, 



300 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

and became more urgent day by day. He bad no 
need of taking Foucbd into bis cabinet at Arnou- 
ville ; be migbt bave remained tbere in peace ; tbey 
would bave soon been obliged to go tbere after 
bim." 

A notewortby tbing is tbat it was by tbe most 
entbusiastic royalists tbat tbe selection of Foucb^, 
Duke of Otranto, and Napoleon's minister of police 
during tbe Hundred Days, was imposed on tbe 
King, and tbat it was tbrougb tbem tbat be became 
Louis XVIII. 's Minister of Police under tbe second 
Restoration. Baron de VitroUes, Count Beugnot, 
and Cbateaubriand express, not witbout surprise, 
tbe singular entbusiasm felt by tbe defenders of tbe 
tbrone and altar for a regicide. M. de Vitrolles 
says : " Tbe opinion of tbe royalists and tbe notables 
of tbe Faubourg Saint-Germain was suddenly and 
in an unexpected way given in favor of tbe Duke of 
Otranto. Had be exercised over tbem tbose influ- 
ences, tbe art of wbicb be understood better tban 
anybody else ? Or was it tbat tbe capricious wind of 
opinion bad blown upon tbem? It is certain tbat 
witb one voice tbey called for Foucb^ as Minister 
of Police. He alone, tbey said, could protect tbe 
tbrone from tbe plots of its enemies, and fear came 
to tbeir aid. Wben I objected, my objections bad 
not tbe sligbtest weigbt. Up to tbat time I bad 
tbougbt tbat sucb sbiftings of opinion were reserved 
for tbe ignorant populace, and I was astounded to 
find it easier to carry tbe people of tbe Faubourg 



FOUCHE 301 



Saint-Germain off their feet than the frequenters of 
the drinking-places of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine." 

It greatly surprised Count Beugnot to find the 
Constable of Crussol, sometime captain of Monsieur's 
body-guard, and a legitimist par excellence, distin- 
guishing himself by his zeal in behalf of Fouch^: 
"I recoiled," says Count Beugnot: "I could not 
believe it. What! the Constable of Crussol, the last 
of our chevaliers, the very type of fidelity, — does 
he propose the selection of such a man to the 
brother of Louis XVI. ! I reproached the worthy 
man, and my reproaches were pretty severe, but he 
always replied: 'What would you have? Fouch^ 
preserved us all when the King went away; it is 
owing to him alone that M. de Vitrolles was not 
shot, and really, who in France are the enemies of 
the royal family? The Jacobins! Well, Fouch^ 
holds them in his hand, and so long as he is for the 
King, we may sleep in peace. My dear M. Beug- 
not, families in the Faubourg Saint-Germain are 
old; we have suffered too much; we need rest.' " 

And what is M. de Chateaubriand's opinion? 
" Was not the Faubourg Saint-Germain right in its 
belief in M. Fouch^? When M. de Saint-Ldon 
went to Vienna he took three letters, one of which 
was addressed to M. de Talleyrand; the Duke of 
Otranto desired Louis XVIII. *s ambassador to urge 
the son of Philippe Egalite to seat himself on the 
throne if he saw his way clear. What probity in 
these negotiations ! How fortunate we were to have 



302 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

to do with such honorable gentlemen ! We admired 
them, however; burned incense before them and 
blessed these Cartouches; we paid court to them 
and called them 'monseigneur.' " And, like M. de 
Vitrolles, like Count Beugnot, Chateaubriand shows 
us the entire Faubourg Saint-Germain singing a 
canticle of gratitude in honor of the notorious 
regicide. "Everybody," he adds, "had a hand in 
the nomination of Fouch^, when it was once secured, 
— religion and impiety, virtue and vice, royalist 
and revolutionist, foreigner and Frenchman, — all 
exclaimed: 'Without Fouch^, no security for the 
King; without Fouch^ no safet}^ for France; he 
alone can do the work. ' The old Duchess Dowager 
of Duras was one of the noble ladies most animated 
in the hymn. . . . The timorous had been so much 
afraid of Bonaparte that they took the assassin of 
Lyons for a Titus." 

After these laments, the author of the GSnie 
du Ohristianisme tells the following anecdote. 
" ' Well ? ' said Louis XVIII. to me, opening the 
conversation with that expression. — 'Well, Sire, 
are you going to take the Duke of Otranto?' 'It 
is necessary to have him; from my brother to the 
Constable of Crussol (and the latter is not suspected) 
everybody says that we cannot do otherwise. What 
do you think?' — 'Sire, the thing is done; I ask 
Your Majesty's permission to be silent.' 'No, no; 
speak ; you know that I have opposed the measure 
ever since Ghent.' — 'Sire, I can only obey youx 



FOUCHE 303 



orders ; pardon my fidelity ; I believe the monarchy 
is at an end. ' The King did not reply, and I was 
beginning to tremble at my hardihood when His 
Majesty resumed: 'Well, M. de Chateaubriand, I am 
of your opinion.' " 

Notwithstanding her habitual obedience to the 
King, the Duchess of Angouleme had always 
declined to receive Fouch^. As soon as she per- 
ceived his presence at the Tuileries she became 
anxious and disturbed. But she was not to suffer 
long from this humiliating sight. It was not neces- 
sary for her to secure the removal of the Minister of 
Police. He fell of himself. At the time when the 
Princess entered Paris, after her triumphal journey 
to Bordeaux and Toulouse, a new Chamber of 
Deputies was opening its sessions. This was the 
celebrated " Undiscoverable Chamber," — an assem- 
bly more royalist than the King himself. 

With a Chamber like this, even Fouch^ saw that 
his further presence in the ministry had become 
impossible. Up to the last moment he was the 
victim of illusions. He had secured the interven- 
tion of the Duke of Wellington in his favor. A 
domestic event whose importance he much over- 
estimated had just strengthened his chimerical hope 
of definitively conciliating the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
main. He had for several years been a widower, 
but he succeeded in persuading a young woman of 
high family, but without fortune. Mademoiselle de 
Castellane, to accept his hand. But on his very 



304 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

wedding day he was given to understand that the 
Duchess of Otranto would never be well received by 
duchesses of ancient lineage. The daughter of 
Louis XVI. was installed at the Tuileries on the 
11th of September, 1815. On the 19th, Fouch^ was 
dismissed. Five days afterwards he dragged the 
Prince de Talleyrand along Avith him in his down- 
fall. Thus this Talleyrand-Fouchd ministry, the 
object of so many intrigues, ambitions, and resent- 
ments, lasted only three months. On the stage of 
history do not celebrities resemble the poor marion- 
ettes whose thread is pulled by a mysterious and 
invisible hand ? 

On leaving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
Prince de Talleyrand had the address to get him- 
self appointed grand chamberlain, at a salary of a 
hundred thousand francs. Fouch^ contented him- 
self with being the French minister at Dresden, 
which was a court all in the family, inasmuch as 
Louis XVIII. was the son of a princess of Saxony. 
Once again was the irony of fate shown in the 
presence of a regicide, as representative of the Most 
Christian King at that patriarchal court, where, 
besides. Napoleon was always held in highest honor. 

While Fouch^, Duke of Otranto, was making 
ready to go to his diplomatic post, he received from 
Louis XVIII. a letter couched in friendly terms. 
He answered it with an epistle like a Parthian shaft, 
denouncing to the King, the Princes of his family, 
and especially the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme, 



FOUCHE 305 



for alleged attempts to overthrow the throne. Then 
this man who, two months before, had wrested from 
the Emperor his abdication and driven him from the 
Elys^e to Malmaison, and from Malmaison to the 
sea, took up in turn his road to the frontier, more 
like an exile than a diplomat, and disguised, till he 
should have left France behind him. On the 2d of 
October, 1815, while on his way, he wrote as fol- 
lows from Brussels to his chief, the Duke of Riche- 
lieu, president of the Council and Minister of For- 
eign Affairs: "My Lord Duke: I left Paris after 
receiving my credentials. ... I congratulate myself 
on the relations that have come to exist between 
Your Excellency and myself. They will surely make 
you appreciate my services. I know that those which 
I rendered during my ministry have been miscon- 
strued. I must expect that intrigue will continue to 
depreciate them, if only to show its zeal. I confide in 
the justice of the King, in public opinion, and in time 
to be revenged for all outrages. I hope. My Lord 
Duke, that in the functions which I shall exercise, 
I shall place in your hand weapons for my defence. 
In the present condition of Europe, there is no 
diplomatic mission that may become more impor- 
tant. Questions are about to arise, and the way 
in which they are dealt with will give more or less 
lustre to this or that legation." 

On the 11th of October, 1815, the Duke of Riche- 
lieu replied : " My Lord Duke : I am in receipt of 
the letter which you did me the honor to write from 



306 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Brussels, on the 2d of this month. I shall be 
delighted to see relations established between us 
which your information and experience may render 
of great advantage to the welfare of the State. You 
may rely on my eagerness to cause the King to 
appreciate the services you may render in the 
mission His Majesty has confided to you." 

Arrived at his post, the French minister to 
Saxony thus reported his reception: "Dresden, 
October 30, 1815. — My Lord Duke : I reached 
Dresden on Saturday. Yesterday, which was Sun- 
day, I presented my credentials to the King, who 
received me kindly, and invited me to dine with 
the royal family. An equal feeling of gratitude 
and veneration for our august sovereign animates 
the court of Saxony. It earnestly prays that his 
good fortune may equal his virtues and his en- 
lightenment." 

To this despatch the Duke of Otranto added the 
following profession of royalist faith accompanied 
with a bit of flattery to the Duke of Richelieu : " All 
opinions, parties, and factions must be pretty well 
convinced by this time that France cannot recover 
its independence as a nation save by rallying 
frankly and strongly around the King. To Your 
Excellency belongs the task of bringing this truth 
home to every heart. Your noble character, now 
perfectly well known to the Avhole nation, inspires 
entire confidence in your words." 

In his correspondence, Fouchd thought less of 



FOUCHE 307 

casting light on the affairs of Saxony than of giving 
advice about the inside condition of France, and 
pleading his own cause, for his conscience was his 
accuser. In a despatch, dated on the 3d of Decem- 
ber, 1815, he wrote: "Your ministry will be 
honored and blessed if you reconcile all the parties 
around the throne and prevent any one of them from 
becoming too prominent. I had no other thought 
during my ministry. My Lord Duke, lofty souls 
are sincere. I meditated no lie when I swore to the 
King that I would serve him. My heart was so 
filled with the necessity of uniting with him that 
it would willingly have leaped into the midst of 
France, poured its blood into every breast, and so 
penetrated all with its sentiments. All Paris 
appreciated my conduct during the terrible crisis 
that shook the throne. It required some courage to 
declare for the Bourbons before the King had entered 
his capital. I was at the head of the French gov- 
ernment. It is well known that no personal dan- 
gers chilled my devotion to the King. It is easy 
now for an orator to cast reproach on any minister 
from the height of the two Chambers, but it is a 
somewhat delicate matter to insult an absent min- 
ister; and he who, after the subsidence of a storm, 
attacks the minister who quelled it, shows more 
passion than good sense. . . . The way in which 
your predecessors are denounced is sufficient to 
forewarn you of the way in which unjust men will 
appreciate the eminent services you are to-day ren- 



308 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

dering to your country. . . . Any moderation for 
which you are blamed, the King will be blamed for. 
Constant efforts will be made to withdraw him from 
the course which his reason and information have 
themselves laid down for him. A constitutional 
king seems to men of limited understanding a king 
without power and without energy. If the present 
ministry permits itself to be drawn along by the 
current, it will end by belonging to the party of 
exaggeration. Man does not always know the 
import of the vows he takes." 

Forgetful of the fact that he had drawn up and 
signed the lists of proscribed on the 24th of July, 
the Duke of Otranto ended his despatch, or rather 
his apology, with the following words : " It was not 
disorder alone that we had to repress ; order had to 
be established in a stable manner, and it was neces- 
sary to give great moral force and authority to the 
King. In order to do this, we thought there was 
nothing better than to pacify France with thoughts 
of security, pardon, and tolerance, and by instilling 
the belief that there could not be too large forgetful- 
ness of the past, and that guarantees of security 
could not be too greatly multiplied." 

This justification of his conduct was but -psiins 
wasted. Fouch^, Duke of Otranto, and minister of 
France at Dresden, was to be stricken down by the 
law against regicides. On the 4th of January, 
1816, the Duke of Richelieu wrote to him: "My 
Lord Duke: I have the honor to inform you 



FOUCHE 309 

that the King has decided to terminate the mission 
with which you have been charged at the court at 
Dresden. I send herewith the letters of recall 
which His Majesty has on this occasion sent to His 
Majesty, the King of Saxony." The other day we 
said to ourselves on looking at this short and dry 
letter: "So, this was the end of that noisy and 
troubled career. A few official lines copied down 
by an employee of the Minister of Foreign Affairs ; 
thenceforth nothing, nothing but exile and oblivion. 
He who yesterday proscribed is himself proscribed 
to-morrow. Why struggle so hard to reach such a 
goal at last?" 



V 



lyiAESHAL NEY 



"TDEAS of right and duty," says M. Guizot, 
-L "sentiments of respect and of fidelity, were 
confused and conflicting in many minds. So to 
speak, there were then two real and natural gov- 
ernments face to face, and many minds might easily, 
and without perverseness, be perplexed as to which 
should be chosen. Louis XVIII. and his advisers 
might, therefore, and in their turn and without 
weakness, have taken this moral perturbation into 
consideration. Marshal Ney is the most signal 
illustration of it. The greater the harm he had 
done the King, the easier would it have been, with- 
out danger, to use clemency as well as justice, 
and to show towards him, when he was condemned, 
that magnanimity of head and heart which is so 
efficacious both in establishing power and command- 
ing fidelity. Even the violence of the royalist re- 
action, the fierceness of party spirit, and the thirst 
for chastisement and vengeance, would have given 
to that act additional brilliancy and effect, for they 
would have signalized the return of manliness and 
liberty." 

310 



MARSHAL NEY 311 



The Restoration did not comprehend that if there 
was one man that should be pardoned, it was the 
man who, in a nation justly celebrated for courage, 
was called 'Hhe bravest of the brave." 

Notwithstanding the capitulation of the 3d of 
July, 1815, which gave him legal protection from 
all prosecution, Marshal Ney withdrew from Paris, 
at the instance of his family. He took with him 
but little luggage, but was unwilling to leave 
behind him the Egyptian sabre that the First 
Consul had given him in July, 1802. He went to 
the waters of Saint- Alban, near Roanne, where he 
remained till the 25th of July. Then he sought 
refuge in a chateau near Aurillac, which belonged 
to one of his wife's relatives. There he lived 
secluded in an upper chamber from which he did 
not emerge when there were strangers in the house. 
But he had the imprudence to leave on a sofa his 
beautiful Egyptian sabre, the gift of Napoleon. 
The richness of the weapon excited the attention 
of a visitor, who, on the next day, gave a description 
of it at a house in Aurillac. From the details 
that he gave, another person concluded that the 
sabre could belong only to Ney or Murat. This was 
reported to the prefect of Cantal, who sent fourteen 
gendarmes to the chateau Bessanis to arrest the 
marshal. They came on the 5th of July and found 
the proscribed man walking quietly in a courtyard. 
It was he to whom they first explained their errand. 
"I am Marshal Ney," answered the bravest of the 



312 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

brave, and he was taken to Paris as a prisoner. At 
some leagues' distance from the capital the mar- 
shal's wife met them, and when he saw the beloved 
companion of his glory and his misfortunes, he 
could not control his emotion. His eyes filled with 
tears. 

"For lion hearts are father hearts." 

"Do not be surprised," said he to his captors; "I 
am not brave when I think of my wife and chil- 
dren." 

Upon learning of the marshal's arrest, Louis 
XVIII. cried with rare good sense: "He does us 
more injury to-day by permitting himself to be 
taken than he did on the 14th of March." It was 
thought desirable to bring him at once before a 
council of war composed of French marshals. Mar- 
shal Moncey, Duke of Conegliano, who held the 
seniority, refused to take part in the council of war, 
and for this refusal he was deprived of his rank as 
marshal by an order of the 29th of August, 1815, 
and condemned to imprisonment for three months in 
the fortress of Ham. 

Some days afterward Marshal Mortier, Duke of 
Treviso, received a visit from M. Dupin at his 
house in the Faubourg Saint-Honor^. There was a 
portrait of Mortier in the splendid uniform of a 
marshal of the Empire in all his decorations, and 
opposite was a pititure of his father, a venerable old 
man with long hair and dressed in farmer's clothes. 



MARSHAL NEY 313 



"You see there," lie said, with emotion to his 
visitor, "my father's picture and my own. I will 
unclergo every disgrace, — they may render me des- 
titute; it is nothing. I will leave everything; I 
will assume the garb and take up the occupations 
and toils of that good man, rather than condemn 
Marshal Ney. I know I can work." 

In the salons there was no pity. M. de Viel- 
Castel says that women of the sweetest disposition 
on ordinary occasions became transformed into veri- 
table furies, and without the least scruple gave 
expression to their impatience for blood. The 
investigation lasted for more than three months. 
When it was remarked by somebody that it was 
rather barbarous to prolong by empty temporizing 
the life of a man whose fate was no longer in doubt, 
"Well, then! "cried one of the women, "don't let 
him languish, nor us either." 

The fury of these demoniacs, of whom more than 
one had been at the feet of Napoleon and both his 
Empresses, excited horror. "Oh!" as Madame de 
Remusat with good reason wrote to her son, who had 
told her about the "bloodthirsty speeches" of these 
charming dames, " I am as angry as you at the rage 
of all those women, whether they have blue eyes or 
black. When an unfortunate criminal is crushed 
by justice, one should be silent and leave him to 
the tribunal whose duty it is to decide his fate, and 
to God who probably has often overruled the judg- 
ment of man. Revolutions surround men with such 



314 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

difficult circumstances that though kings may be 
pardoned for severity employed to render states 
secure, the public should be indulgent. But this 
maxim is out of date, and charity no longer is 
classed among the Christian duties. I wish that 
women could be persuaded that these hateful pas- 
sions mar them much. Surely, my friend, love 
would be much more becoming to them and, pas- 
sion for passion, hatred will the more surely drag 
them to hell." Shame to the Red Terror! Shame 
to the White Terror! Shame to the great ladies 
who by their cruelty became imitators of the knit- 
ting women of 1T93! Both are a disgrace to their 
sex. 

The jurisdiction of a council of war composed of 
marshals being out of the question, the Duke of 
Richelieu said in the Chamber of Peers on the 11th 
of November, 1815 : " Not only in the King's name, 
but in the name of France, so long treated with 
indignity and now in a stupor, let us fulfil the 
duties of the administration of public justice. In 
the name of Europe we come at once to conjure and 
to require you to decide the question of Marshal 
Ney." The Duke of Richelieu opened his ministry 
dis advantageously by speaking as prosecutor, — he 
whose heart was generous, — and by making against 
" the bravest of the brave, " an address which, it is 
said, he did not write, and which he subsequently 
regretted. On the next day people said: "Have 
you read the ukase of the Duke of Richelieu?" the 



MARSHAL NEY 315 



allusion being to the fact that he had been governor 
of the Crimea during the emigration. 

Debate began in the Chamber of Peers on the 21st 
of November, 1815. During the foregoing night 
the accused had been transferred from his prison, 
the Conciergerie, to the Luxembourg, where the 
Peers held their sessions. In places reserved for 
them were the Prince Royal of Wurtemberg, Prince 
Metternich, the foreign diplomats, and English and 
Russian generals. When the marshal appeared, in 
the custody of four grenadiers of the guard, his 
calm and martial attitude produced a vivid impres- 
sion even on his bitterest enemies. He came as the 
incarnation of a defeat terrible but glorious, — the 
defeat of Waterloo. People remembered that on 
that day, seven times unhorsed, covered with blood 
and powder, on foot and sword in hand, he had said, 
alas ! in vain : " My friends, you shall see how a mar- 
shal of France dies ! " It might be said that all the 
sufferings, all the griefs, all the disasters, of the 
beaten-down and vanquished fatherland were concen- 
trated in his person. 

There was a second public session on the 23d of 
November, and a third on the 4th of December. 
Witnesses were heard on the latter day. The most 
important of them was General de Bourmont, the 
same who on the 14th of March, at Lons-le-Saulnier, 
did not abandon the marshal, and who, after asking 
the Emperor for a command, went over to the enemy 
on the 15th of June, — that is to say, three days 



316 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

before Waterloo. Ney could not contain himself 
when he found his former lieutenant a witness 
against him. He burst out in a fury of indigna- 
tion: "The witness has been preparing his thesis 
for the last eight months, and has had time to make 
it a good one. When he was getting up his denun- 
ciations at Lille he probably imagined that I would 
be treated like Labedoy^re, and that he and I would 
never meet face to face. But he was wrong. I 
have no talent for speech-making; I go directly to 
the point. It is a fact that on the 14th of March I 
had an interview with the witness in the presence 
of General Lacourbe. It is hard that Lacourbe 
should be dead; but I appeal against all this testi- 
mony to a higher tribunal, — to God who hears and 
will judge us, — judge both you and me, Monsieur 
de Bourmont! " 

After this apostrophe, the accused told the history 
of his defection at Lons-le-Saulnier. According to 
his account, he had called Lacourbe and Bourmont, 
his two generals of division, shown them the 
draught of his imperialist proclamation, and asked 
them, on their word of honor, what they thought 
about it. General Lacourbe made a brief and eva- 
sive reply, but General Bourmont approved of the 
draught, induced the marshal to read it to the 
troops, and engaged to win them over. "He had 
two hours to reflect," added the accused. "As to 
myself, did any one say: 'What are you about to 
do ? You are risking your honor and reputation in 



MABSHAL NEY 317 



this desperate course ! ' No ! I found only men who 
urged me towards the abyss. ... I did not even 
know where Bourmont's troops were. If he thought 
I was doing wrong, he was free to arrest me. With 
his large command he could have done so, and I was 
alone, without officers, and without a single saddle- 
horse to escape on. But he was shrewd, and con- 
ducted the affair very ably. I wanted very much 
that he should lodge at my quarters, but he 
declined, and took refuge with the prefect, the Mar- 
quis of Vaulchier, and together they arranged to 
watch the progress of events, and, in any case, to 
leave themselves a door of escape. When the troops 
were assembled, Bourmont and Lacourbe put me at 
the head of a body of officers and conducted me to 
the middle of the square, where I read the procla- 
mation. Soldiers and officers alike ran to us, 
embraced and almost stifled us with their demon- 
strations. The troops dispersed in good order. 
The superior officers came to dine with me. I 
was dejected, but, if Bourmont means that, the 
guests were cheerful. That is the truth of the 
matter." 

While General Bourmont and Marshal Ney were 
face to face before the Chamber, many a judge said 
to himself : "Why did Bourmont ask the Emperor 
for a command during the Hundred Days, when he 
was not obliged to do so ? Why did he take Gen- 
eral Lab^doyere as a pledge of his fidelity to the 
imperial eagles ? Why did he go over to the enemy 



318 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL:i:ME 

on the eve of Waterloo? And yet Bourmont is 
loaded with honors, and Ney is to be shot! " 

The chancellor asked the witness why, after dis- 
approving, as he pretended, of the resolution taken 
by the accused, he accompanied him to Lons-le- 
Saulnier, where the troops were gathered. Bour- 
'mont answered that he wished to see what would be 
the effect of the reading of the proclamation by the 
marshal, and thus be able to give the King an exact 
account of all that took place. 

The accused then spoke again, and strenuously 
denied what the witness had asserted, namely, that 
to his knowledge the marshal, while reading the 
proclamation, wore the decoration of the Legion of 
Honor with the Emperor's picture on it. " Gen- 
eral," he cried, "it is infamous to say that 1 had 
already the design of becoming a traitor." Then he 
recalled the fact that when a colonel came to him to 
offer his resignation rather than join in the defec- 
tion, he had freely permitted him to go away. 
Why did not Bourmont act in the same way? "I 
had no guard," he added, looking the witness in the 
face. " You yourself might have arrested and killed 
me ; you would have done me a great service by doing 
so, and perhaps you would have done your duty." 

Bourmont having expressed the opinion that the 
marshal would probably have saved the day for the 
royalists if he had taken a musket and, at the head 
of his troops, at once charged Napoleon, Ney replied: 
"Would you have done so, had you been in my 



MABSHAL NEY 319 



place ? No ; I do not believe you capable of it ; you 
have not character enough." 

M. Berryer, the elder, who, with M. Dupin, was 
counsel for the accused, asked the witness the fol- 
lowing question, which ended the inquisition: 
"When everybody was shouting 'Long live the 
Emperor!' did you, M. de Bourmont, cry 'Long 
live the King? ' " 

The session of the 5th of December was busied 
with the capitulation of Paris on the 3d of July, 
1815, the twelfth article of which read as follows: 
"The inhabitants and, in general, all who were 
within the capital shall continue to enjoy their 
rights and liberties without being liable to be dis- 
turbed or questioned as to anything that they are 
doing or may have done, or as to their conduct or 
political opinions." One of the plenipotentiaries 
who had signed the treaty of the 3d of July, namely, 
General Guillemont was interrogated by Chan- 
cellor Dambray, and answered thus: "As chief of 
the general staff I was instructed to stipulate for 
amnesty to all, whatever might be their opinions, 
functions, or conduct. Amnesty was not accorded 
without opposition. I was ordered to break off all 
negotiation if the terms were not accepted; the 
army was ready to show fight; it was this article 
that induced it to lay down its arms." 

Marshal Davoust, Prince of Eckmiihl, declared 
that he instructed the plenipotentiaries to withdraw 
from the conferences if the clauses proposed by him 



320 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

to insure the safety of persons and property should 
not be accepted. M. Berryer, the elder, then asked 
the witness to say what he would have done in case 
of refusal. Marshal Davoust answered that he 
would have given battle as he had a fine and well- 
disciplined army consisting of sixty-five thousand 
infantry, twenty-five thousand cavalry, and four or 
five hundred cannon. "The capitulation," ex- 
claimed Marshal Ney, "was protective to such a 
degree that I counted on it. Without it can any 
one suppose that I would not have preferred to die, 
sword in hand?" 

At the close of the hearing on the 5th of Decem- 
ber, M. Bellart, the public prosecutor, thus opened 
his ridiculously declamatory address : " Gentlemen, 
when in the recesses of deserts once covered with 
populous cities, the philosophic wanderer who has 
been led thither by his insatiable curiosity — ■ an at- 
tribute, gentlemen, so characteristic of our species — 
perceives the melancholy remains of those celebrated 
monuments constructed during remote ages in the 
fatuous hope of braving the jaws of time, and which 
now are but formless masses of ruins and dust, he 
cannot escape being plunged into profound melan- 
choly as he reflects upon what is the end of human 
pride and its achievements. How much more crush- 
ing to the feelings of him who loves his fellow-men 
is the spectacle of the ruins of a splendid fame 
fallen into opprobrium through its own fault! " 

The last session was held on the following day. 



MARSHAL NEY 321 



the 6tli of December. It lasted five hours, and did 
not end till three o'clock in the morning of Decem- 
ber the 7th. What had been the attitude of more 
than one great lady for the last few days? Lamar- 
tine, who belonged to Louis XVIII. 's body-guard, 
says: "The life accorded to the hero of Beresina 
seemed a theft committed against the law of repri- 
sal. In the salons of the aristocracy people clamored 
around the King's ministers, demanding the hero's 
blood as if for a personal favor. Women of the 
highest rank, young, beautiful, rich, laden with gifts, 
favors, titles, and dignities by the court, forgot 
their families, their pleasures, their indolence, and 
their amours, and ran about from morning till night 
if so be they might prevent a single vote in favor of 
mercy or secure one in favor of punishment. We 
ourselves have observed with grief and astonish- 
ment, the runnings about, the petitions, and the 
hands of these women clasped in suppliance for 
concessions which they implored for the satisfaction 
of their hate. We blush for them yet. Who need 
be astounded at the brutal ferocities of the masses, 
when rank, fortune, and courts become possessed by 
such reckless inhumanity, such frenzies of rage, and 
such thirst for blood on the day of vengeance?" 

Alas ! the cruel passions of these women were to 
be satisfied. The chancellor did not even permit 
the defence to argue from the capitulation of Paris. 
Another treaty covered the marshal, — that of the 
20th of November, 1815. The marshal was born in 



322 THE DUCkESS OF ANGOULEME 

1769^ — in the same year as Napoleon, — at Sarre- 
louis, and, by the treaty of the 20th of November, 
1815, that city was ceded to Prussia. It was stipu- 
lated in the documents, that "any person born in 
the countries ceded or restored should not be 
annoyed or troubled in his person because of his 
acts or political opinions." M. Dupin made a point 
of this. "Marshal Ney," said the lawyer, "is under 
the protection not only of French law, but under 
that of the law of nations. He has always been 
French at heart, but he was born in a country which 
no longer belongs to the King of France." Then 
the marshal, much excited, cried out : " I am French 
and I shall die a Frenchman!" He then read the 
following protest: " Hitherto my defence has seemed 
to be unrestricted, but now it is hampered. I thank 
my generous defenders for what they have done, and 
what they are ready to do, but I beg them rather to 
cease entirely from defending me than to defend me 
imperfectly. I would rather not be defended at all 
than to have only the simulacrum of a defence. I 
was brought to trial contrary to the faith of treaties, 
and I will not invoke them. I appeal to Europe 
and to posterity." 

A hundred and thirty-nine peers voted for death. 
Among them were many of the marshal's old com- 
rades in arms, such as Marshals Kellermann, Perig- 
non, S^ruri^r, Victor, and Marmont, and Generals de 
Beurnonville, Dessoles, Maison, de La Tour-Mau- 
bourg, Lauriston, and still others. Seventeen peers 



MABSHAL NET 323 



voted for banishment: MM. Porcher cle Ricliebourg, 
de Maleville, Lenoir-Laroche, Lemercier, Lanjui- 
nais, General Klein, Herwyn, General Gouvion- 
Saint-Cyr, Calaud, Chollet, General Chasseloup- 
Laubat, Bertbollet, the Duke of Broglie, Lally, 
General Curial, Fontanes, and the Duke of Mont- 
morency. Five peers who voted for death added a 
recommendation to the mercy of the King. These 
were Marshal Marmont, General Dessoles, and MM. 
de la Tour du Pin, Emmery, and Beaumont. Five 
peers abstained from voting, — MM. de Choiseul, de 
Sainte-Suzanne, de Brigode, d'Aligre, and de Nico- 
lai. "Clement but timid neutrality," says Lamar- 
tine, "which neither smites nor spares, but which 
is never permissible between the sword and the 
victim." 

The conduct of the young Duke of Broglie, who 
then voted for the first time in the Chamber of 
Peers, was specially honorable. The chancellors 
first put the question of fact : " Did the marshal read 
to the troops the proclamation hereunto adjoined ? " 
Of what effect would it have been to say yes, when 
the accused himself had admitted the fact? The 
question of law was then proposed: "In doing so, 
was the marshal guilty of high treason?" Upon 
this, the Duke rose and replied: "No." In his 
Souvenirs he writes : " I owe it to the Chambers to 
testify that the temerity, and, in view of the times 
and circumstances, I may almost say the scandal, of 
my vote excited neither exclamation nor murmur 



324 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

and that at the close of the session no one stood 
aloof from me or was cooler than usual. Meanwhile 
we must all live, and at that time we lived in an 
atmosphere of intimidation that was stifling. I cite 
only one example. 

" Among the old senators who still sat in the new 
Chamber of Peers, was a little general named Gou- 
vion, but who, I think, was not related to the mar- 
shal. I had known him at Antwerp, where he 
was in command at the time M. d'Argenson lived 
there as prefect, and I often conversed with him. 
Some time before the opening of the session, I saw 
the little man fidgeting in his seat as if in pain. 
At last he came to me and asked what I intended to 
do, — that is, how I meant to vote. I told him. 
Unquestionably he did not understand me fully, 
although he said: 'I shall do the same.' — 'Very 
well,' said I; 'then sit down here beside me; we 
will encourage each other.' He sat down, but, 
when the question of culpability was put, he said 
'yes,' like all who had preceded him. And when 
the time came to vote as to the punishment, he said 
'death!' in the same way. Poor man! Precisely 
the same thing happened to him that had happened 
to Marshal Ney on the plain of Lons-le-Saulnier. " 

When the verdict was rendered. Count de Roche- 
chouart, commandant of Paris, to whom the arrange- 
ments for the execution of the prisoner were as- 
signed, proceeded to take possession of the Luxem- 
bourg, and there keep guard over the doomed man. 



VI 



THE DEATH OF MAESHAL NEY 

IT had been decided that the accused should not 
be present when sentence was passed. He 
withdrew before the vote and was taken back to the 
prison of the Luxembourg, where he was to pass 
the night. He asked for dinner and ate with good 
appetite. On seeing that a small knife which he 
was using put his jailors in fear lest he should 
commit suicide with it, he threw it aside. After 
dinner he smoked a cigar and then threw himself 
down fully dressed, and fell into a deep sleep. At 
half after three in the morning he was roused by 
M. Cauchy, secretary of archives to the Chamber of 
Peers, who had come to read the death warrant. 
Before beginning, M. Cauchy tried to speak some 
kind words in order to show his regret at being 
obliged to come on such a mission. "Sir," said the 
marshal, "do your duty. Every one must do his 
duty. Read." 

When, as he proceeded to read, the clerk came to 
the enumeration of the titles and style of the con- 
demned, the marshal interrupted him with these 
words: "Say Michel Ney, soon to be a pinch of 

325 



326 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 



dust." When told that he was at liberty to say 
farewell to his wife and children, he requested that 
word should be sent to them to come between six 
and seven o'clock in the morning. "I trust," he 
said, "that your note will not tell my wife that her 
husband is condemned; it is for me to tell her of 
my fate." 

M. Cauchy then withdrew. The marshal lay 
down again with his clothes on, and went to sleep. 
In a short time he was again roused by the arrival 
of his wife, accompanied by his four sons and 
Madame Gamot, her sister. On entering the room, 
the unfortunate woman, who was soon to be made 
a widow, fell rigid to the floor. The marshal raised 
her with the assistance of his keepers. Tears and 
sobs succeeded to a long swoon. Madame Gamot 
was on her knees in a condition not less deplorable 
than that of her sister. The marshal tenderly 
embraced his four sons, Napoleon, Michel, Eugene, 
and Edgar Ney. The eldest (who died in 1857, a 
general and a senator, and whose sister married the 
Duke of Persigny) was twelve years old. The 
youngest (wlio was a general, senator, and master 
of the hounds during the reign of Napoleon III., 
and who married the widow of the son of General 
Lab^doy^re) was only three years of age. 

The unhappy father who, like all heroic natures, 
was as tender-hearted as he was energetic and brave, 
took the four boys on his knee, one after the other, 
and, speaking in a low voice, gave them the last 



THE DEATH OF MARSHAL NEY 327 

counsels of paternal love. The last accents of that 
sweet and strong voice were to remam forever an 
ineffaceable memory in the hearts of the children. 

Meantime the condemned man, who saw that his 
wife was giving way to despair, was desirous of end- 
ing adieux so harrowing, and, that he might lighten 
the wretched woman's grief, he endeavored to instil 
into her a hope in which he himself had no share. 
Leaning towards his sister-in-law, he said so that 
his wife might hear it, that if that unhappy lady 
should go to the Tuileries without a moment's loss 
of time, she might perhaps see the King and secure 
a pardon. Then came the last embrace, and the wife 
went away with her sons and her sister, and in all 
haste sought the palace of Louis XVIII. The con- 
demned man was not under the least illusion in 
regard to his fate. He had advised his wife's act 
only in order that she might be willing to with- 
draw. After she had gone he sat down at a table 
and made his will. 

So great was the apprehension caused by the pres- 
tige that the bravest of the brave had among the 
troops, and so pressing was the fear lest he might 
yet escape, that his keepers were body-guards dis- 
guised in the uniform of grenadiers. Lamartine, 
who belonged to the body-guard at the beginning of 
the Restoration, said of these masquerading war- 
dens : " They were young and amiable noblemen, 
the elite of their companies, and of incorruptible 
honesty, and utterly incapable of insulting a captive 



328 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

whose fate they deplored and whose glory was their 
admiration. Although they were officers they were 
dressed in the uniform of simple mounted grenadiers 
of the royal guard. In this costume, they went 
among the gendarmes and other people whose duty 
it was to keep watch over the prisoner; they 
guarded him in his room and conversed familiarly 
with him, not to embitter, but to distract and cheer 
his loneliness. They encouraged him to hope and 
flattered themselves that the marshal, condemned 
and pardoned by the King, would, under better stars, 
remember them as comforters in his evil days. It is 
from their own lips that we received these confi- 
dences." 

When the condemned man had ended his will, one 
of the guards said to him: "Marshal, in your ex- 
tremity would it not be well to think of God ? It is 
always a good thing to become reconciled to God." 
The marshal paused, looked at his interlocutor and 
said, after a moment's silence: "You are right; yes, 
you are right. One should die like an honest man 
and a Christian; I should like to see the cure of 
Saint-Sulpice." Some minutes afterwards the Abbe 
Depierre, cure of that parish, entered the con- 
demned man's room and heard his confession. At 
the end of three-quarters of an hour the venerable 
priest withdrew, promising to return and assist the 
marshal in his last moments. 

Meanwhile the marshal's wife and her four poor 
little children had arrived at the Tuileries. Before 



THE DEATH OF MABSHAL NET 329 

daybreak the suppliant family contrived to make 
their way as far as the rooms adjoining the apart- 
ments of the King and the Duchess of Angouleme. 
Would the orphan of the Temple intervene to pre- 
vent the four children from becoming orphans? 
Would she remember that the bravest of the brave 
and the martyred Queen had occupied the same 
prison, the Conciergerie ? Would the farewells but 
now spoken by the marshal recall to the Princess 
those of her father, Louis XVI. ? Would she forget 
the words of clemency and pardon spoken by the 
victim before mounting the scaffold on the 21st of 
January ? Could she forget, too, that the marshal's 
wife was the daughter of the unfortunate Madame 
Auguie, sister of Madame Campan ; of that Madame 
Augui^ who was Marie Antoinette's lady of the bed- 
chamber, and who went mad with grief when she 
learned of the Queen's execution, and so killed her- 
self? And the marshal's wife thought: "No; it is 
impossible that the Duchess of Angouleme, who is 
generous and good, can fail to pity me. The first 
nobleman of the Chamber, the Duke of Duras, 
allowed me to enter the Tuileries. This permission 
to enter the chateau and almost reach the royal 
apartment can be nothing less than a tacit promise 
of mercy to my husband and my little ones. Louis 
XVIII. is still asleep. When he wakes, it will be 
to pardon." 

The shadows of night have passed away. Day is 
beginning to dawn, a day sombre, chill, wintry. 



330 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

It is the 7th of December. The marshal's wife is 
waiting. The Duchess of Angouleme will listen 
to nothing, will know nothing. Her door remains 
closed. Closed, too, is the King's door. Hour 
follows hour, — hours of prostration, of anguish. 
And what is doing while the poor wife waits there 
so long? 

It is half after eight in the morning. Faithful to 
his promise, the Abb^ Depierre, the cur^ of Saint- 
Sulpice, returns to the Luxembourg. A carriage 
stands waiting for the priest and the marshal. When 
both are beside it, the priest steps back to allow the 
illustrious warrior to enter first : " No, no, monsieur, 
get in before me," says the condemned man, and 
then, looking towards heaven, he continues, " I shall 
ascend to yonder sky before you." At the sound of 
this affectionate dispute, the driver turns his head. 
At the sight he grows pale and falls from his seat. 
'Tis an old soldier who recognizes the bravest of the 
brave. Vain efforts are made to revive the coach- 
man, and the horses have to be led by the bridle. 

The morning is cold and gloomy. An icy mist 
almost prevents the eye from distinguishing the leaf- 
less branches of the might}^ trees. The horses move 
slowly. The condemned man listens respectfully 
to the consoling words of the priest, his last friend. 
He believes that he will be taken to the plain of 
Grenelle, the common place of execution. Sud- 
denly the carriage stops, and enters the gate of the 
Luxembourg and the Observatory. The marshal 



THE DEATH OF MARSHAL NEY 331 

is surprised at this halt at half the distance. The 
gate swings back. The marshal is requested to 
alight. He sees that he is not to enter the carriage 
again. The government feared that there would be 
a crowd at the plain of Grenelle, and therefore dur- 
ing the night it changed the place of execution. 

The marshal now gives his gold snuff-box to the 
cur^ of Saint-Sulpice in keeping for his wife, and 
also some louis to be distributed among the parish 
poor. Then, after embracing the venerable priest, 
he walks firmly towards the platoon of veterans 
ranged before him. The officer proposes to bandage 
his eyes. "Do you not know," says Ney, "that for 
twenty years I have been accustomed to look straight 
at bullets and cannon-balls?" Touched by such 
pride and courage, the officer hesitated before giving 
the word to fire. "Before God and my country," 
cried the noble victim, "I protest against the ver- 
dict that condemns me. I appeal to mankind, to 
posterity, to God. Long live France!" General 
de Rochechouart, whose lot it is to see that the 
sentence is carried out, orders the commander of the 
platoon to do his duty. The marshal takes his hat 
in his left hand as he held it at the last charge at 
Waterloo, and, placing his right on his breast, cries : 
"Soldiers, straight at the heart!" Three bullets 
strike him. It is nine o'clock in the morning. 
The hero has lived his life. 

And still the marshal's wife waits for the King 
to rise. At last she is told that the audience she 



332 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

seeks cannot be accorded, for now it would be 
futile. At first the poor widow does not under- 
stand the words. They have to be explained to her. 

Conformably to the rules of military executions, 
the body of the marshal remained exposed for a 
quarter of an hour on the place of punishment. 
Passers-by asked whose body was thus abandoned as 
a public spectacle. No one dared to reply: "It is 
Marshal Ney; it is the Duke of Elchingen; it is the 
Prince of Moscow." When the fifteen minutes had 
passed, a few sisters from the neighboring Charity 
Hospital went to claim the body, and had it borne 
to their chapel, where they watched over it in 
prayer. 

Three hours afterwards the unhappy widow had 
an interview with the cur^ of Saint-Sulpice which 
is thus described in an unpublished letter that a 
relative of the marshal's wife was good enough to 
let us see: "Paris, Abbaye-aux-Bois, December 11, 
1815. — Yesterday the marshal's widow saw the 
cur^ of Saint-Sulpice. The interview was distract- 
ing. She wished to know all. It was on their 
knees that the unfortunate children heard the last 
words of their father. I want to tell you some of 
the details given by the cur^. They soothed and 
softened her poignant grief. When the cur^ heard 
of the marshal's sentence, he went to the Luxem- 
bourg. As soon as the marshal saw him he said: 'I 
counted on your coming, monsieur. Your character 
is known to me. I have often heard you spoken of, 



THE DEATH OF MARSHAL NEY 333 

and always with praise. I wish to do my duty as 
a Christian. I was reared by deeply religious 
parents and have never forgotten what they taught 
me. I can even say that I have never undertaken 
anything without commending myself first to God. 
If you will hear me, I will confess.' At the 
moment of absolution his emotion was very great. 
'I am deeply indebted to you,' said he to the cur^; 
'I am calm and resigned.' Then he gave the priest 
what money he had, asking him to distribute it 
among the poor, and to say some masses for the 
repose of his soul. 

"When the guards came to take him to execu- 
tion, he was surprised. He had hoped to see his 
wife and children once more. 'What! ' said he to 
the cur^, 'I thought I was to have twenty-four 
hours. ' ' Within twenty-four hours^ ' answered the 
cure. — 'A few hours sooner or later; 'tis all the 
same ; I am prepared. ' 

"He had dreaded a civil execution. When he 
saw the troops, his face took on a look of content. 
He made an exclamation and grasped the curb's arm. 
On reaching the fatal spot, he handed his snuff-box 
to the priest, begging him to give it to his wife 
with his own hands. It is said that he fell, shout- 
ing 'Long live France!' I am sure that these 
details will do you good; they will assuage your 
grief by bringing tears. It is consoling to think 
that he died so like a Christian." 

M. Guizot says in his Memoirs: "Had Marshal 



834 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Ney been pardoned and exiled, after his condemna- 
tion, by royal letters drawn up for weighty reasons, 
royalty would have risen like an embankment above 
all, whether friends or enemies, to stay the stream 
of blood, and the reaction of 1815 would have been 
put down and closed, as well as the Hundred Days." 

M. de Lamartine, who had so energetically 
branded the murder of the Duke of Enghien, cen- 
sured with no less eloquence the murder of Mar- 
shal Ney. In his Histoire de la Restauration he 
wrote : " The Duchess of Angoul^me alone might 
have drawn upon herself the rage of the royalist 
party and let tears weigh in the balance against the 
hero's blood. . . . Fatal inspirations of severity 
prevailed with her over the natural part that Provi- 
dence had assigned to her. . . . And therefore she 
carried out in her family, her cause, and herself the 
most irresistible of policies, — the policy of feeling. 
This was more than obduracy; it was a mistake that 
condemned her dynasty to a brief existence." And 
Lamartine ends with these words: "The court was 
cruel, the King weak, the ministers complaisant, 
the Chamber of Deputies implacable, Europe urgent, 
and the Chamber of Peers as cowardly as a senate 
in the evil days of Rome. Let each take its share 
in the blood of a hero; France wants none." 

Meantime the government, blinded as it was, 
rejoiced in this execution as if it had been a tri- 
umph. On the 7th of December the Moniteur repro- 
duced from the Dehats an article which gave the 



THE DEATH OF MARSHAL NET 335 

most exciting details of the victim's last moments, 
and without even suspecting that the tears which 
so imprudent an account would cause to flow 
would be tears of vengeance. At the close of this 
article the reader, already softened, saw in a sort 
of stupor, the proceedings characterized as "noble, 
generous, indulgent.''^ The journalist ended the 
lucubration, which was reproduced in the official 
sheet, as follows: "Posterity to which the accused 
made his appeal will ratify this verdict which is 
already confirmed by impartial contemporaries and 
by all who do not sacrifice evidence to impassioned 
pretensions, and history will apply to the memory 
of Marshal Ney a justice which it is easy to foresee 
and which only his still-smoking blood prevents us 
from forecasting." 

Ah! surely the editor of the Journal des Dehats is 
not a good prohpet. Could he peer into the future, 
what would he see? He would see the memory 
of Marshal Ney avenged successively by the Re- 
public and the Empire, the provisional govern- 
ment decreeing on the 18th of March, 1848, that a 
monument should be raised to the hero on the very 
spot where he fell ! He would see Rude, who made 
the bas-relief of the Marseillaise for the Arc-de- 
Triomphe of the Champs-Elys^es, sculpturing the 
statue of the marshal, sword in hand as when he 
cried "Forward!" And on the 7th of December, 
1853, thirty years to a day after the execution, and 
on the same spot where the illustrious victim was 



336 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

shot, what will be taking place ? The great bodies 
of State, the marshals of France, the authorities, and 
detachments of troops of all arms, will be assem- 
bled. The Archbishop of Paris will give the abso- 
lution. The Minister of War will recall the mar- 
tial deeds of the gallant warrior. His statue will 
be unveiled with pomp and ceremony. M. Dupin, 
his lawyer during the trial, will urge, — and this 
time victoriously — the plea of 1815. "To-day," he 
will exclaim, "after a very long interval furrowed 
with sundry revolutions, I come with the marshal's 
sons to assist at the great deed of reparation accorded 
to the memory of their father. It is an honor with 
which I am grateful to be associated. . . . Mar- 
shal Ney, Duke of Elchingen, and Prince de la Mos- 
kowa, victorious on so many battle-fields, was the 
holocaust offered in expiation of the military glories 
of the Empire. 'Twas the tricolor immolated to 
the white flag ! . . . It was reserved for the nephew 
of the Emperor to make reparation for that outrage, 
to raise a monument of honor in place of a funeral 
monument, and to erect the hero's statue on the 
very spot that saw the victim fall ! 

"Honor, gentlemen; honor to the men who are 
thus recalled from the tomb, and who rise before 
posterity amid the consoling ceremonies of religion, 
and the acclaims of their fellow-citizens, and, like 
Marshal Ney, in the attitude of command ! " 

Let us, for the rest, do the Duchess of Angoul^me 
the justice to say that it was not long before she 



THE DEATH OF MARSHAL NEY 337 

came to regret the death of Marshal Ney. She had 
occasion to see General de S^gur shortly after the 
publication of his dramatic account of the campaign 
of 1812, in which he spoke admiringly of the hero of 
B^rdsina. The Princess had an heroic soul like 
that of her grandmother, Maria Theresa, and her 
mother Marie Antoinette. "Ah! general," said 
she, " if we had known all this. Marshal Ney would 
never have been shot." 



VII 

COUNT DE LAVALETTE 

ON the 7th of December, 1815, a man who had 
been captured and consigned to the Concier- 
gerie at the same time with Marshal Ney, and who 
was still in that prison, wondered what had become 
of the marshal, and anxiously interrogated one of 
the jailors as to his fate. The jailor hesitated, but 
finally said that the bravest of the brave had been 
executed. "At La Greve, on the scaffold ?" cried 
the captive. "No; shot." "He was very lucky!" 

The jailor did not understand what this meant. 
He thought his charge was going mad. 

The prisoner dreaded a harder fate than that of 
Marshal Ney. A few days previously he had 
written as follows to his former general. Marshal 
Marmont: "My head is doomed. I was able to 
hear without disquietude the fatal decree that pro- 
scribed me; but I confess that it is not without 
horror that I see myself surrounded by executioners, 
and going to the scaffold. For us old soldiers it is 
a trifle to die; we have braved death on splendid 
battle-fields ; — but La Greve ! . . . Oh ! it is hor- 
rible! . . . One must, alas! leave this life so 
338 



COUNT BE LAV ALETTE 339 

crossed with misfortunes; so brief; but, in the 
name of our old friendship, in the name of the 
dangers we have shared, do not suffer one of your 
old fellow-soldiers to mount the scaffold. Let a 
company of brave grenadiers shoot me. In dying I 
would have this last illusion ; I died on the field of 
honor." 

The man who wrote these lines was forty-six 
years old. He was born in 1769, the year in which 
Napoleon and Marshal Ney first saw the light. He 
was one of the bravest and most brilliant officers in 
the French army, and distinguished himself as aide- 
de-camp to General Bonaparte during the first Ital- 
ian campaign and the expedition to Egypt. He was 
named Antoine-Marie Chamans, Cou.nt de Lavalette. 

Some days before his departure for Egypt, in 
1798, he married Emilie de Beauharnais, niece of 
the first husband of the woman who became the 
Empress Josephine. 

Viscount and General Alexandre de Beauharnais, 
Josephine's first husband, was as marked a liberal 
as his brother. Marquis Frangois de Beauharnais, 
was a reactionary. In the Constituent Assembly the 
latter was known as "faithful Beauharnais," because 
of his fidelity to the monarchy, or "Beauharnais sans 
amendement," because of his persistent opposition 
to all amendments the ^purpose of which was to 
restrict the royal prerogatives. The marquis mar- 
ried his cousin-german, the daughter of Count 
Claude de Beauharnais and the authoress Fanny 



340 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

Mouchard. Of this union a daughter was born, 
who became Madame de Lavalette. 

Marquis Francois de Beauharnais was much 
devoted to the royal cause, and emigrated in order 
to rejoin the brother of Louis XVI. at Coblentz, 
leaving his daughter at Paris in the care of domes- 
tics. The young woman was still there when Gen- 
eral Bonaparte, whose niece she was by marriage, 
said to his aide-de-camp, some days before they set 
out for Egypt: "Lavalette, I can't make you chief 
of squadron, but I am going to marry you off. I 
want you to marry Emilie de Beauharnais; she is 
very handsome and well-bred. Do you know her?" 

" I have seen her twice. But, general, I have no 
fortune; we are going to Africa, and I may easily 
be killed there. What would become of my poor 
widow? Besides, I have no taste for marriage." 

" One has to marry to have children ; that is the 
object of life," said Bonaparte. "You may possibly 
be killed, but in that case she will be the widow of 
one of m.y aides-de-camp, of a defender of his coun- 
try; she will have a pension and be able to place 
herself advantageously. Now, nobody wants an 
emigre^ s daughter; my wife cannot bring her out. 
The poor child is worthy of a better fate. The 
business must be attended to promptly. Talk with 
Madame Bonaparte this evening. The mother has 
given her consent. Within a week the wedding, 
and 1 will give you fifteen days for the honeymoon. 
Then you will join me at Toulon." 



COUNT DE LAV ALETTE 341 

"I will do anything you wish, general," was the 
reply. " But would the young woman accept me ? I 
don't want to have any compulsion used." 

" She is a child who is tired of the boarding-school. 
While you are away she will live with her grand- 
father at Fontainebleau. You will not be killed, 
and in two years you will be with her again. So ! 
the affair is settled." 

In the evening Madame Bonaparte said to her 
husband's aide-de-camp : " To-morrow we will go to 
Saint-Germain, and I will introduce you to my 
niece, who is a charming girl." 

On the next day. General and Madame Bona- 
parte, Eugene de Beauharnais, and Lavalette, entered 
a carriage and drove to Madame Campan's school at 
Saint-Germain. It was a great event for the school. 
Presently four young people went down into the 
garden. Lavalette looked around anxiously for her 
who was to be his destiny. She was the prettiest. 
Her figure was erect, slender, and graceful ; her face 
charming, her color fine, and there was about her 
a bashful embarrassment that made the captain 
smile. 

It was decided to have breakfast on the lawn in 
the garden. Lavalette said to himself: "Will she 
accept me without repugnance?" The abruptness 
of the marriage and the suddenness of the departure 
disquieted him. After breakfast, he requested 
Eugene de Beauharnais, the girl's cousin-german, 
to take her to a lonely garden path, where he would 



342 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

join her. "I have," said he to her, "only my sword 
and the good will of the general, and I must leave 
you in fifteen days. Open your heart to me. I know 
I am disposed to love you with my whole soul ; but 
this is not enough. If this marriage is not to your 
taste, let me know it ; it will not be hard for me to 
find some pretext for breaking it off. My with- 
drawal will be accepted; you wilt not be worried. 
I shall keep your secret." 

Emilie de Beauharnais lowered her eyes. Her 
only answer was a smile, and then she gave her 
bouquet to the aide-de-camp. They embraced. In a 
week they were married. 

Lavalette had not the courage to bid his wife 
farewell. It would have been too painful to do so. 
Without speaking he set out for Egypt, whence 
he did not return for eighteen months. During 
the expedition Bonaparte had eight aides-de-camp. 
Four perished, — • Julien and Sulkowski assassinated 
by Arabs, Croisier killed at the siege of Saint-Jean- 
d'Acre, and Guibert at the battle of Aboukir. Two 
others, Duroc and Eugene de Beauharnais, were seri- 
ously wounded. Merlin and Lavalette escaped. 
" Glory and fortune, " said the latter, "cost a good 
deal with General Bonaparte." 

Under the Empire, Lavalette, who had left mili- 
tary life, did great service as postmaster-general. 
Napoleon made him a count. As the cousin- 
german of Prince Eugene, of Queen Hortense, and 
the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden, who was the 



COUNT BE LAVALETTE 343 

daughter of Count Claude de Beauharnais and a 
Mile, de Lezay-Marnesin, the Countess of Layalette 
had a splendid position at court, where she exer- 
cised the duties of lady of honor to her aunt, the 
Empress Josephine. 

Lavalette remained faithful to the Emperor dur- 
ing the Restoration. He did not take the oath to 
Louis XVIII., and was not asked to do so. His 
conscience did not reproach him when, faithful to 
his old master, and after the flight of the King, he 
took possession, in the Emperor's name, of the 
post-office department on the morning of the 20th of 
March, 1815. He retained all the employees, with- 
out caring to inquire whether they were Bona- 
partists or royalists. One of his higher-grade 
employees officiously went to him with a list of 
suspects. Lavalette let him talk. When the man 
had finished his denunciations, Lavalette said : " Sir, 
have you ever looked an honest man in the face ? " 
In his embarrassment the official managed to stam- 
mer out something. "Ah! well," said Lavalette, 
"learn to know me," and, taking the list, he threw 
it into the fire without reading it. 

Lavalette was an amiable and intelligent man, 
kindly and modest, benevolent and ready to do a 
service, and he always had warm friends. Never- 
theless, the. reactionaries clamored loudly for his 
death at the outset of the Restoration. It was in 
vain that M. de Vitrolles told him that he would do 
well to look to his safety, and that Fouch^ himself. 



344 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

who was then making up the list of proscribed per- 
sons, gave him the same advice. He had the 
imprudence to stay at Paris, detained there by his 
wife's approaching confinement. He was arrested 
on the 18th of July, 1815, and incarcerated in the 
Conciergerie, where Marshal Ney already was. His 
cell was separated from the women'a court only by 
a wall. " From eight in the morning till seven at 
night," said he, "there was a continual and deafen- 
ing riot of the grossest, basest, and most depraved 
language tliat it is possible for tongue to utter. 
The jailors often had to run to re-establish order 
among these harpies. On this court the two win- 
dows of the Queen's prison opened, and while I 
was there the room, which I had to pass when I went 
into the yard, served as a parlor for such privileged 
prisoners as received visitors from outside. . . , 
The entrance was at the end of a dark corridor. 
The Queen had had only a bed, a table, and two 
chairs. A large curtain suspended in the middle 
of the room separated her from the gendarme and 
the jailor. . . . How many times have I walked 
in that prison when sadness and dejection came over 
me ! There I found strength and courage again. I 
blushed at myself for complaining of the fate that 
might be in store for me, when I conjured up the 
dreadful destiny of the Queen of France. I am 
certainly the first who set on foot the movement to 
make a chapel of that cell. Shortly after my escape 
the order that this should be done was given and 
carried into effect." 



COUNT DE LAY ALETTE 345 

In his solitude the prisoner heard music which 
came from an adjoining room. The musician was 
Marshal Ney. "He played the flute pretty well," 
says Lavalette in his touching Memoirs, "and in 
this way he was able to charm away his weariness 
for some days. But this resource was taken from 
him under the pretext that it was against the rules 
of the house. He liked to repeat a waltz which ran 
in my head a long time and which I used to hum. 
I never heard it anywhere else except once in 
Bavaria, at a rustic ball on the banks of Lake 
Starnberg. I was looking at young peasant girls 
thronging the fresh green turf. The melody was 
sweet and melancholy. The sound of the flute at 
once transported me back to the Conciergerie, and 
I went away in tears and pronouncing the marshal's 
name with bitterness. ... In the daytime we used 
to walk in the little court without being permitted to 
be together, although the marshal was accompanied 
by a gendarme." 

Lavalette gave orders that his wife, who was with 
child, was not to come to the prison, since so 
lamentable a sight might be disastrous to so sensi- 
tive and affectionate a woman. He wished to keep 
that frightful dungeon from the eyes of his daughter 
also. "Nevertheless," he says, "her mother sent 
her to me for my blessing on the eve of her first 
communion. Upon seeing my only child, apparelled 
in all the grace and freshness of youth, throw herself 
into my arms, bathed in tears, and presently falling 



846 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

at my feet in a deep swoon, my heart was torn with 
all the tenderness of paternal love. Then, for the 
first time, I felt all the depth of my misfortune. I 
could not control my sorrow; silent tears mingled 
with my groans, and I laid my hands on her head, 
unable to say a word." 

Lavalette suffered cruelly. The well-known line : 
"'Tis crime that brings us shame, and not the 
scaffold," brought him no consolation. The thought 
of being guillotined, like a common criminal, in 
the Place de Greve, and of the anguish into which 
his wife and daughter would be plunged, haunted 
him like a nightmare. And yet he preserved his 
firmness except only when he gave his child his 
fatherly blessing. 

What was it that consoled him ? He himself 
shall tell us. "I did not seek moral strength in 
meditation or illusions that reality dispelled day 
by day. I found it in thinking of the Emperor. I 
suffered, but it was for him. My evil fate gathered 
lustre from the cause in which it had its birth. My 
name and destiny were allied with his imperishable 
fame ; and then, were his sufferings not greater than 
my own? The perfidy of the English government 
had placed him on Saint Helena. What torments 
did not his exile at the world's end hold in store for 
him! I was ashamed to complain in view of such 
misfortunes. The revenge of the kings was heaped 
on us both, and I found consolation and glory in 
sharing it. The thought of this sustained me 



COUNT BE LAV ALETTE 347 

always and preserved me from every show of weak- 
ness." 

Lavalette was produced at the assize court on the 
16th of November, 1815. He heard his sentence 
calmly, and turning to his former subordinates in 
the post-office who had testified against him, he 
said: "Gentlemen of the postal service, I bid you 
farewell." On the night after he was sentenced he 
wrote to his old companion in arms. Marshal Clarke, 
Duke of Feltre : "See what you can do for me, and 
try at least to spare me the horrible agony of the 
scaffold. Have me shat by soldiers of the army, and 
death will seem almost a boon to me." The mar- 
shal replied in a letter containing these words : " All 
that is left for you is to commend your wife and 
child to the inexhaustible goodness of the King." 
When Louis XVIII. heard that the condemned man 
asked the favor of being shot, he answered drily: 
"No, he must be guillotined." 

Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, who had been 
the friend of Lavalette 's youthful days and his com- 
rade in arms, then intervened in a way that does 
the greatest honor to his memory. Although the 
body-guard had received orders to prevent Madame 
de Lavalette from entering the Tuileries, he allowed 
her to go there on the 18th of December. The poor 
woman, weak and suffering, could not walk without 
pain, and had to be carried part of the way in a 
sedan chair, and this attracted considerable atten- 
tion. Nevertheless, the marshal did not despair. 



348 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULtME 

He decided that Madame de Lavalette and he should 
go to the guardroom together when the King should 
be at Mass. Should they arrive before that hour, 
Louis XVIII. would hear of their presence and not 
be present at Mass on that day rather than meet the 
suppliant. When the King had passed and was in 
the chapel, the marshal and Madame de Lavalette 
presented themselves at the foot of the grand stair- 
way. The porter had received no instructions, and 
they went up without interference. But when they 
were on the threshold of the guardroom an officer 
cried out: "Marshal, you cannot enter with that 
lady on your arm." Marmont then appealed to the 
officer in charge. 

He was a sub-lieutenant of the body-guard, Mar- 
quis of Bartillac, who married a Mademoiselle de 
B^thune, and a nephew of the Duke of Havre. The 
officer stepped forward, and the following dialogue 
ensued between him and Marmont : — 

"It is Madame de Lavalette who accompanies 
you, marshal; she is forbidden here." 

"I have just been told so; nevertheless, answer 
me frankly; you have orders to prevent her from 
entering, but have you orders to put her out?" 

"No." 

"Well, then; leave her alone. She is going to 
ask a pardon for her husband, and I hope she will 
secure it. What risk do you run ? Has the nephew 
of the Duke of Havre anything to fear ? The worst 
that can happen to you is a few days under arrest ; 



COUNT BE LAV ALETTE 349 

and, by submitting to this risk you run the chance 
of saving a man's life. It is a piece of good for- 
tune; do not let it slip." 

" Marshal, I will leave the responsibility with you. 
Madame de Lavalette may remain." 

And then the marshal placed the petitioner near 
the door of the King's apartments and remained at 
her side till Mass was ended. 

When the chapel-door opened, Baron de Glan- 
d^ve, major of the body-guard, went to the Duke 
of Ragusa and told him that the presence of Madame 
de Lavalette was contrary to orders. 

"Yes," said the marshal; "but have you the 
King's orders to expel her?" 

"No." 

"Well, then, she shall stay." 

Louis XVIII. appeared at the entrance. Madame 
de Lavalette cast herself at his feet and cried: 
" Pardon, Sire, pardon ! " 

The King replied: "Madame, I share in your 
justifiable grief, but I have duties laid on me, and 
I must do them." And he passed on. 

"A symptom of the bitter spirit of the time," says 
Marshal Marmont in his Memoirs, " is that when 
the King had said these words the body-guards were 
fain to shout ' Long live the King ! ' which, in the 
circumstances, was a somewhat brutal and savage 
thing to do. Madame de Lavalette had another 
petition for the Duchess of Angouleme, and wished 
to present it. But the latter avoided it by a violent 



350 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

movement and a repulse, casting at her at the same 
time a furious look impossible to describe." 

Louis XVIII. having re-entered his apartments, 
the marshal led the suppliant to her sedan chair and 
thence home. The poor woman was still deceived 
as to the King's intentions. But the marshal looked 
on the King's action in a clearer light; for, as he 
himself has said, the opportunity was too good and 
the surroundings too dramatic not to be used if the 
King wished to show mercy. However, the marshal 
determined to make another endeavor on the next 
day, the 19th of December, which was the Duchess 
of Angoul'eme's birthday, and the anniversary of her 
escape from the Temple twenty years previously; 
namely, on the 19th of December, 1795. 

There was a community in misfortune between 
the two women which ought to have touched the 
daughter of Louis XVI. Madame de Lavalette's 
father was an emigre who had sacrificed himself for 
the royal cause. She might say to the Duchess of 
Angouleme: Madame, I kneel before you in the 
selfsame room at the Tuileries to which, on the 12th 
of August, 1792, my husband, mingling with the 
Swiss guards, came at the peril of his life to serve 
your family. . . . Madame, at this very moment 
my husband is in that frightful prison of the Con- 
ciergerie, in a dungeon next to that in which your 
mother was confined twenty years ago. . . . Ma- 
dame, you know what the scaffold is, and surely you 
will never let my husband ascend it. . . . Ma- 



COUNT BE LAV ALETTE 351 

dame, you who have suffered so much will take pity 
on my sufferings. 

And the unhappy woman said to herself: "If I 
can speak with the Princess, if only for a minute, 
my husband is saved." 

On the 19th of December Marshal Marmont found 
means to have her brought to the anteroom of the 
captain of the guards on duty. There she was to 
fall at the feet of the Duchess of Angouleme when 
the Princess mounted the stairs which were known 
as the King's stairs. But body-guards had been 
stationed everywhere, even on the upper floors, 
officials redoubled, and the doors watched to prevent 
surprises, and so the Duchess was enabled to go 
about in the interior of the Tuileries without danger 
of meeting the petitioner. 

Notwithstanding all this, the poor wife was still 
the victim of illusions. " Marshal, " she kept say- 
ing to the Duke of Ragusa, " they wish to delay the 
pardon of my husband till he is on the scaffold." 
Marmont replied : " Do not believe it. If he mounts 
it, he is a dead man. You say you want to find a 
way of escape for him. Now is the moment to find 
it, and I beg you not to defer it. Time passes." 
Madame de Lavalette acquiesced in the situation. 



VIII 

MADAME DE LAYALETTE 

MADAME DE LAVALETTE had nothing 
now to expect from the mercy of the King. 
The anger of the salons was roused to the highest 
pitch. "Society rang with complaints," says Mar- 
shal Marmont in his Memoirs. "The little court 
ladies appeared to have lost their heads completely, 
and were inexorable. It was the fashion to be 
pitiless. The most atrocious language was used. 
They talked of nothing less than shooting me. 
'How,' they said, 'are we to have an army, if a 
marshal of France is the first to forget the laws of 
discipline and to disobey orders? . . . Never, at 
any time, has Parisian society displayed passions 
more violent than then." More than one woman of 
the Faubourg Saint-Germain was furious against the 
condemned man, because, in his capacity as post- 
master-general he had possibly come to know their 
secrets. They wished to have those secrets locked 
in his grave. 

In the meantime Madame de Lavalette remem- 
bered what the marshal had told her. She was sick 
and overwhelmed with grief. During her hus- 
352 



MADAME DE LAV ALETTE 353 

band's imprisonment she had given birth to a son 
whom she had just lost. The effects of confine- 
ment, the death of her child, and the sentence of 
her husband to capital punishment had so preyed 
on her health that she could no longer bear the 
jolting of a carriage, and was obliged to use a sedan 
chair when she made the slightest journey. But 
though her body was bowed down, nothing could 
touch her heroic soul. She secured permission to 
dine with her husband, and every evening she was 
carried to his prison. On the 19th of December, 
the day on which she had vainly tried to reach the 
Duchess of AngoulSme, she went as usual to the 
Conciergerie, about six o'clock in the evening. 

When she was alone with the condemned man, she 
said : " It is only too certain that we have nothing 
to hope for. We must do something, therefore, my 
dear, and this is what I propose. At eight o'clock 
to-morrow evening you will leave this place dressed 
in my clothes. You will go into my sedan chair, 
which will take you to the rue des Saints-P^res, 
where M. Baudus will be waiting with a cabriolet 
to take you to a hiding-place that he has found 
for you. There you will stay without danger till 
means are found to get you away from France." 

Lavalette listened to his wife and looked at her 
in silence. She was perfectly calm and her voice 
was steady. He tried to say how mad this project 
seemed to him, but she exclaimed : " No objections ! 
If you die, I shall die. Therefore do not reject my 



354 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

plan. I am profoundly determined. I feel that God 
sustains me." 

In vain did he try to discourage her by speaking 
of the many jailors who surrounded him every night 
after she had left him; of the keeper who assisted 
her into the sedan chair; of the impossibility of 
being so well disguised as not to be detected, and, 
finally, of his invincible repugnance to leaving her 
in the hands of the jailors. 

" What may not happen, " cried the unhappy hus- 
band, "when my escape is discovered? Will not 
these brutes so far forget themselves as to maltreat 
you?" 

He wished to speak further, but he saw by the 
pallor of her countenance and her impatient ges- 
tures, that he- must relinquish all objections. 
" Give me your word to obey me, for it is our last 
resource." He took her hand. "I will do what- 
ever you wish and in the way you wish it." This 
promise calmed her, and they separated. 

Upon the departure of his wife, the prisoner said 
to himself: "The plan is impracticable. She is 
nearly half an inch taller than I. All the jailors 
are used to seeing me. Her figure is lithe and 
slender. It is true that suffering has made me 
remarkably thin, but the difference between us 
would be apparent to everybody. On the other 
hand, I am well prepared to die ! Indeed, for two 
days I have been thinking of committing suicide 
with the weapon I have concealed. All this hang- 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 355 

man's toilet and the slow procession on a cart 
from the Conciergerie to La Greve has disturbed 
me, but my heart has remained firm. And now I 
must turn my eyes from death to enter on a fool- 
hardy plan of flight! Burlesque is going to be 
mixed up with tragedy, for I shall be captured in 
woman's clothes, and perhaps they will have the 
barbarity to produce me in public in that ridiculous 
masquerade. But, on the other hand, how can I 
refuse what she asks ? She seemed so happy in her 
project ; so certain of its success ! It would kill her 
if I did not keep my word." 

It was the 20th of December, 1815. The petition 
for pardon had been definitely rejected in the coun- 
cil of ministers. The scaffold on which the con- 
demned man was to be executed on the following 
day was in process of erection. At five o'clock in 
the afternoon Madame de Lavalette arrived at the 
Conciergerie, accompanied by her daughter, who 
was twelve years old. She wore a merino dress 
lined with fur, which she had been accustomed to 
use when returning from a ball, and in her bag was 
a black taffeta petticoat. " This is enough to dis- 
guise you perfectly," she said to her husband. 
Then she sent her daughter to the window and 
added in a low voice: "When the clock strikes 
seven, you must be dressed; everything is ready. 
As you go out, you must give your arm to Jose- 
phine and take care to walk very slowly, and when 
you pass the registrar's office you must cover your 



356 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

face with my handkercliief. I tliought of bringing 
a veil, but unfortunately I am not in the habit of 
wearing one when I came here, and so it is not *to 
be thought of. When going through the doors, 
which are very low, be careful not to get the bonnet 
feathers caught, for then all would be lost. I 
always find jailors in the office, and the warden is 
accustomed to give me his hand to assist me into 
the sedan chair which always stands near the exit- 
gate, though to-day it will be at the head of the 
great stairway. There you will meet M. Baudus, 
who will conduct you as far as the cabriolet and tell 
you where you are to be in hiding. And then — 
trust in God, my friend ! . . . Do exactly as I say. 
Don't worry. Give me your hand; I want to feel 
your pulse. Good! . . . Now take mine; do you 
detect the least disturbance?" The poor woman 
did not see that she was in a high fever. " Above 
all," she added, "no displays of affection, or we are 
lost!" 

Dinner is served. At this moment Madame Dutoit, 
little Josephine's aged nurse, enters the cell. Far 
from being useful, she will only be in the way, for 
she may lose her head when she sees the disguise. 
She begins to groan. Then Madame de Lavalette, 
in a subdued but steady voice, says to her: "No 
childishness ! Remain at the table ; do not eat or 
say a word, and smell at this perfume-bottle. Within 
less than fifteen minutes you will be in the open air." 

It is a grim dinner. The condemned man thinks it 



MADAME DE LAVALETTE 357 

his last, and the food almost chokes him. None of the 
three speaks a word. At a quarter to seven Madame 
de Lavalette says to her husband: "Come; it is time 
to dress." Then she goes behind a screen with him, 
and arranges the woman's clothes he is to wear. The 
toilet is completed in three minutes. Young Jose- 
phine remains on the other side of the screen. Pres- 
ently the condemned man reappears in his feminine 
costume. " How does your father look ? " Madame 
de Lavalette asks her daughter. "Not badly," an- 
swers the poor child, with a bitter smile. 

The decisive moment comes. He must go. M. de 
Lavalette says to his wife, who' will take his place in 
the cell : " The keeper comes every night, when you 
have gone. Be careful to remain behind the screen, 
and make a little noise by moving the furniture. He 
will think that I am here, and then go away for a 
few minutes, which I must use in making my escape." 
Then husband and wife exchange a last look, without 
daring to embrace. The door opens. Lavalette goes 
first, his daughter following, while Madame Dutoit 
comes last. The wife remains alone in the cell, 
behind the screen. After crossing the corridor, the 
condemned man reaches the door of the ofhce. He 
lowers his head so that the feathers in his hat may 
escape the top of the door-case. On raising his head, 
he sees five turnkeys lining the passage. As he puts 
his handkerchief to his eyes, they take him for his wife, 
and the jailor says, " You are going early. Countess." 
At last he arrives at the end of the room. But the 



358 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

hardest is yet to come. Will the turnkey who guards 
the iron gate open it? A new anxiety here. Lavalette 
puts his hand between the bars to attract attention. 
The turnkey hesitates for an instant, but turns the 
key. The prisoner walks out with his daughter and 
the servant. He is outside, to be sure, but that is 
not all. There is a flight of twelve steps to mount in 
order to reach the courtyard, and at its top is the 
police body-guard. The condemned man goes by them, 
slowly reaches the topmost step, and, with his daugh- 
ter, gets into the sedan chair in the great court. The 
chair is borne on the road to the quai des Orf^vres, 
and stops opposite to the little street de Harlay. 
M. Baudus is there, opens the door of the chair, and 
says to Lavalette, "You know, Madame, that you 
have to visit the President." He leads the fugitive 
to a cabriolet, where a friend of his, M. de Chassenon, 
formerly Auditor to the Council of State, who is on 
the box with loaded pistols, is waiting. The cabriolet 
carries him to a very remote quarter on the Boulevard 
Neuf, where M. Baudus once more takes the lead. 
On the road, Lavalette has removed his feminine 
apparel, and replaced it with a jockey-coat and a 
laced hat. M. Baudus takes him on foot to the 
asylum prepared for him. 

It is eight o'clock in the evening. The night is 
dark, and rain falls in torrents. The headlong paces 
of the horses of gendarmes who, doubtless, are carry- 
ing despatches relative to the escape of the prisoner, 
alone break the silence of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 



3fADA3£E DE LAV ALETTE 359 

main. After walking for nearly an hour, the rue 
de Grenelle is reached at the corner of the rue du 
Bac. M. Baudus says to Lavalette : " I am going 
into a house. While I am talking to the porter, you 
enter the court. On the left you will find a flight of 
stairs. Go up to the last landing, then into a dark 
corridor which you will find at the right. At the 
end of it there is a pile of wood; stay there and 
wait." 

Lavalette thought he was dreaming. He seemed 
seized with vertigo. What house is it at whose door 
his guide is knocking ? It is the hotel of the Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs, the residence of the presi- 
dent of the council, the Duke of Richelieu ! Can 
there be treason ? What can be the solution of the 
enigma? Meantime the door opens. M. Baudus 
enters. Lavalette follows. "Where is this man 
going?" asks the porter. "He is my servant." 
Lavalette goes up to the third floor and stops at the 
pile of wood indicated. A woman grasps him softly 
by the arm and pushes him into a dark room the door 
of which closes behind him. Placing his hands on a 
stove to warm them, he finds a candle and matches. 
He strikes a light and then examines his new domi- 
cile. It is a little garret-room with a very tidy bed, 
two chairs, and a chest of drawers. On the latter is 
a paper on which are written these words : " No 
noise. Open the window only at night ; Avear list 
slippers and wait patiently." Beside this paper are 
a bottle of excellent Bordeaux wine, some volumes 



360 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ^ME 

of Moliere and Rabelais, a pretty basket of sponges, 
perfumed soap, almond cream, and all the minor 
adjuncts of a careful toilet. Now more and more 
does the condemned man believe himself the sport 
of a dream. 

A few minutes afterwards M. Baudus, who is 
publicist to the foreign bureau, enters the room, 
and seeing Lavalette filled with surprise, he says : 
" Calm your imagination ; it is all true ; on the day 
before yesterday Madame de Lavalette sent word 
that she would like to see me at her house, and when 
the servants had left the room and the doors were 
closed, she said : ' I wish to save my husband, since 
pardon cannot be secured ; but I do not know where 
he can find asylum. Procure me the means of con- 
cealing him.' — ' Give me two hours, ' I answered. 
'I am on terms of the closest friendship with a 
family which has known misfortune, and whose 
courage and devotion are admirable.' ' Go quickly,' 
replied your wife ; ' explain my position to them ; 
they will give me life by concealing my husband.' I 
left her ; I came here. . . . Listen I do not be impa- 
tient. You are now at the house of M. Bresson, 
chief of the exchequer department of the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs." 

Lavalette was more perplexed than ever. "Let 
me proceed," said his interlocutor. " After the pro- 
scription of her husband, and profoundly grateful 
to the friends who concealed him, Madame Bresson 
vowed to save some unfortunate man who had been 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 361 

condemned on political grounds, if Providence would 
but kindly send one to her. I went to find her — 
' Your prayer is answered,' said I ; and then I told 
her your story and that of Madame de Lavalette. 
' Would that he might come ! ' she replied with 
enthusiasm. ' My husband is absent, but there is no 
need of consulting him when doing a good deed ; 
he shares my feelings. I will go and prepare a 
room where the unhappy man may be safe. Run and 
tell Madame de Lavalette. It is by a sort of mir- 
acle that you came to me.' Now, you know how 
important it is to our generous friends that no one 
should ever know that they gave you this asylum ; 
the whole family would be ruined. M. Bresson needs 
his employment ; he has a daughter and nephews 
to establish ; a functionary and lodged in a house 
owned by the King, and who is honored with the 
confidence of his minister, he is under no illusion 
as to the irregularity of his action, but, on the other 
hand, he is convinced of your innocence, and what 
are all these considerations when weighed in the 
balance against a man's life ? We intend to get you 
away from here, and see you across the frontier, 
and this will be no easy matter. But Providence 
will not permit us to fail." 

M. Baudus withdrew, and Lavalette remained 
alone for two hours, hardly daring to breathe, and 
reflecting mournfully on the situation of his poor 
wife, left by him in his cell. About eleven o'clock 
in the evening, the door opened again. He saw 



362 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULMiE 

an elegantly dressed woman enter, veiled and ac- 
companied by a girl about fourteen years old. The 
lady threw herself into his arms. " In God's name, 
raise your veil, Madame, that I may at last know 
the angel to whom I owe my safety ! " — " We are 
not acquainted with each other," said she, unveiling. 
"But I am happy to be associated in the heroic deed 
of Madame de Lavalette." She laid some food on 
the stove. " There is your dinner," she added. "You 
will have poor fare, but we had to steal from our- 
selves to nourish you. I will confide our secret to 
none of the domestics ; all of them room in this 
corridor, and the next chamber is occupied by my 
nephew Stanislas. Therefore make no noise in the 
morning ; make your bed and sweep your room your- 
self. As the chamber is supposed to be unoccupied, 
the least noise heard in it might ruin us all." 

Magnanimous hospitality like this is honorable to 
human nature in a time of bloody reaction when a 
sort of White Terror recalled the detestable passions 
of the Red Terror. " I knew M. Bresson no better 
than his wife," says Count de Lavalette in his Me- 
moirs. "I had seen him once, five years before, 
when I set out for Saxony, and perhaps once again 
when I returned, and when our business connections 
were ended, — since I did not remain in diplomatic 
life, — we never met again. M. Bresson was a 
man of very agreeable appearance, of delicate and 
cultivated intelligence, and an energy of character 
of which he had often given the most distinguished 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 363 

proofs. It was not his attachment to the Emperor 
that led him into so dangerous a situation in order to 
save me ; for I doubt that he ever had much liking 
either for his person or his government. It was a 
profoundly humane feeling and a most courageous 
protest against political sentences, of one of which he 
himself had been the victim." 

M. Bresson was born at Darney, in the Vosges, in 
1760, and was one of the representatives of that de- 
partment in the Convention. He voted against the 
death of Louis XVI. Outlawed after the 31st of 
May, he took refuge among the Vosges peasants, 
who sheltered him and saved his life at the risk of 
their own. After the 9th Thermidor, he had a seat 
in the Convention again, and subsequently he was a 
member of the Council during the Hundred Days. 
In 1799 he became head of the exchequer division of 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and held that office 
till 1825. (After the Eevolution he abandoned the 
" de " to which he was entitled. He opened up the 
diplomatic career to his nephew, who was ambassador 
to Madrid under the reign of Louis Philippe, and 
negotiated the famous Spanish Marriages.) 

Let us now return to the hiding-place of the con- 
demned man in the mansion of the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, and describe what is taking place there on 
the evening of the 20th of December, 1815. Madame 
Bresson has just left Lavalette. M. Bresson enters. 
" I have just been at the salons of some of the high 
dignitaries," says he to his guest, with a laugh. 



364 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

" You can have no conception of the dread and con- 
sternation by which everybody is overcome. No one 
at the Tuileries will go to bed ; they are all convinced 
that some great plot is about to explode. They see 
you at the head of the army, and all Paris springing 
to arms. I shouldn't wonder if the foreign troops, 
who are setting out for home, were kept back. 
They talk of closing the gates. Imagine what the 
effect of that would be. The milkwomen couldn't 
come in to-morrow, and so there would be no more 
milk for the breakfasts of those good ladies ! And 
just to think that it was I, I who have you under lock 
and key, who heard all these lamentations ! " 

Meantime, what is going on at the Conciergerie ? 
What has become of Madame de Lavalette? The 
jailor enters the cell a few minutes after the prisoner 
has left it. On seeing the wife in place of the husband, 
he gives a cry of surprise. Madame de Lavalette 
throws herself upon him, trying to keep him in the 
room, but he breaks away from her by force. Then 
the jailors and policemen rush headlong in every 
direction, looking for traces of the sedan chair. They 
find the chair, but within it is only the prisoner's 
daughter. 

The late Duke of Broglie says in his Souvenirs: 
" Nothing can convey any idea of the joy occasioned 
all over Paris by the condemned man's escape, — 
that is to say, all over Paris outside the court and 
the Faubourg Saint-Germain. A little more, and the 
city would have been illuminated. Early in the 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 365 

morning M. de Montrond came to my house and 
told me with a coolness that he alone could keep 
up in pleasantry: 'Dress yourself; get your weap- 
ons ; a terrible crime has just been perpetrated ; in 
defiance of all laws, human and divine, M. de 
Lavalette has escaped from jail in a sedan chair, and 
as soon as he heard the news the King jumped into 
another sedan chair. He is pursuing him in hot 
haste, but it is feared that he will not capture him. 
M. de Lavalette's carriers have the start, and he is 
not so pursy as the King.'" 

The mystification of the proscribers caused genuine 
amusement. On the 26th of December, M. de Re- 
musat wrote to his mother : '' Good-morning, mother. 
This letter will reach you on New Year's Day, and 
it grieves me much that now, for the first time, I 
cannot begin the year at your side. But I am hardly 
in trim to do so, seeing that for the last eight days 
I have almost died of laughter. Although our poli- 
tics is going to the devil, yet the approach of the 
Carnival gives it such a little air of burlesque that 
I have determined to look on instead of going into 
black. In the first place, what do you think of M. 
de Lavalette's escape in a sedan chair? M. Angles, 
the prefect of police, fainted dead away when he 
heard of it. M. Bellast, the procureur-general, 
was sent to interrogate Madame de Lavalette in 
prison, and she was so much disturbed and broken- 
down that she answered his questions only with 
bursts of nervous laughter, which were duly recorded 



366 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUhtME 

in the report. Meantime, there is the Chamber, buzz- 
ing, muttering, and in a tumult. And there was 
that beautiful meeting on Saturday ! M. de Bouville 
swears that being dressed like a woman, M. de 
Lavalette must have betrayed his sex in his walk, and 
all agree in the opinion that his escape is a suffi- 
cient reason for throwing the Amnesty Bill over. 
There is nothing to do but laugh at such talk, other- 
wise it would produce horror. . . . You should have 
seen a little lady in pink at M. de Marbois's house, 
purse her lips and say mincingly to the keeper of 
the seals : ' Sha'n't we go back to our old modes of 
punishment?'" 

Madame de Lavalette was kept in seclusion at the 
Conciergerie, where she was confined in Marshal 
Ney's cell, which overlooked the woman's court. 
Annoyed by the loud cries and indecent language of 
these unfortunates, constantly assailed by a thousand 
terrors, in the blackness of darkness, when the 
keepers retired, and imagining at every minute that 
they were bringing her husband back to prison, she 
passed twenty-five days and nights without a moment's 
sleep. Her agitation and sufferings ended by driving 
her mad, and she did not recover her reason till twelve 
years afterwards. 

M. and Mme. Bresson were finally obliged to take 
their domestics into the secret. None of them betrayed 
it. Lavalette remained hidden in Paris till the 7th 
of January, 1816, the day on which he was executed 
in G&igj on the square of the Palais de Justice. 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 367 

Everything was strange in this affair in which reality 
surpassed the fictions of the wildest romance, and not 
the least strange thing about it was that in the end 
he owed his deliverance to an English general, Sir 
Robert Wilson, who was formerly a bitter enemy of 
Napoleon, but who was indignant at the persecution 
of the Bonapartists. With the aid of two of his 
countrymen, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Hutchinson, General 
Wilson furnished Lavalette with a British uniform, 
and, with the greatest difBculty, succeeded in getting 
him out of France. He found refuge in Bavaria. 
Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, his wife's cousin- 
german, gave him a friendly reception. But the pro- 
scribed man was still in fear of a requisition from the 
French legation. He had to live in retirement and 
under a fictitious name in Bavaria; nor was it till 
1822 that a pardon opened the gates of France to him 
again. On this subject M. Cuvillier-Fleury says, in 
an interesting note : " Lavalette thought to spend 
some happy days in France, but when he arrived at 
Paris, one voice was silent amid the congratulations 
with which his return was greeted. It was his wife's 
voice. From the decisive hour in which, with a 
supreme effort, she bade him flee, and remained as 
a hostage in his stead, she had not once seen him. 
She saw him reappear without emotion and without 
shedding a tear. Did she even recognize him? Poor 
unfortunate ! She lost her reason that he might be 
saved. The last trial surpassed all the rest." 

Lavalette, who died on the 15th of February, 1830, 



368 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

passed his last years in tranquillity. His Me- 
moirs end with this touching phrase : " Madame de 
Lavalette's health is at last so far restored that I 
can have her with me. At times she is plunged in a 
profound melancholy, but she remains sweet, lovable, 
and good. We live in retirement, and summer in 
the country pleases her greatly. I have retained my 
independence, — the chief of blessings, — without a 
pension, without distinction, and without indemnity, 
after a long career dedicated to the service of my 
country ; but still offering prayers for liberty, which 
may, perhaps, never be granted, and living in the 
midst of memories of a great epoch and a great man." 
To sum up all, few episodes in the history of the 
nineteenth century are so dramatic and touching as 
the captivity and escape of Count de Lavalette. 
Now that political passions have died away, one can 
hardly believe that such exaggerations, such injus- 
tice, and such cruelties could ever arise from party 
spirit. No matter what opinions he may hold, who 
is there to-day whose heart is not melted at the 
recital of the heroism of Madame de Lavalette, or 
who does not render all homage to her energy, suffer 
in her sufferings, and share in her woes ? How can 
one help pitying that admirable woman and that little 
girl who was associated in such a touching way with 
her mother's devotion ? Ah, well ! can it be be- 
lieved? Yet in 1815, in aristocratic salons at Paris 
there were shrieks of rage, — and curses directed not 
only against the mother, but against the little child, 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 369 

— against a girl only twelve years of age ! Her 
filial piety was treated as a crime ! In his Memoirs 
M. Guizot describes this shameless prodigy of hate 
with mingled sorrow and surprise : " At that time," 
says he, "I heard a woman of fashion, who on 
ordinary occasions showed sense and goodness, say, 
apropos of the way in which Mademoiselle de Lava- 
lette had assisted her mother to save her father: 
' The little villain ! ' When such frenzied senti- 
ments and language burst bounds around kings and 
their advisers, they are plain warnings of what is 
coming." 

Lavalette himself thus tells the story of the perse- 
cution of his pleasant-mannered and innocent child: 
" My daughter entered the convent in such a trans- 
port of joy, and agitated with such powerful emotion, 
that she could not explain the way in which she had 
helped to save her father. But when all came to 
light on the next day, the lady superior, whose estab- 
lishment had just come under the protection of the 
Duchess of Angouleme, was seized with fear. My 
daughter was ordered not to speak ; the nuns, and 
even some of her fellow-pupils, held aloof from her, 
as if she had been tainted with the plague. Will it 
be credited? The relatives of several of the pupils 
told the lady superior that they would withdraw 
their children from the convent if Josephine Lava- 
lette remained in it. And thus did fear, personal 
interest, and perhaps the vilest passions, make a sort 
of crime and a reason for persecution out of a laud- 



370 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

able and generous action that should have served 
as an example to the young. Six weeks afterwards, 
when Madame de Lavalette was released, she at once 
withdrew her daughter from the convent." 

The sentiment of justice, which is the crowning 
glory of human nature, always ends by asserting its 
rights when once political crises have ceased to exist. 
Lavalette, the man once condemned to death, the 
man who had been executed in effigy, died univer- 
sally esteemed and honored. M. Cuvillier-Fleury 
was right in saying : " Spirits of men of all parties 
who are condemned for political reasons and stricken 
down in your strength by the thunderbolts of the 
storm, let the fate of Lavalette be your consolation ! 
You are rehabilitated in the person of this man." 
Those who had proscribed him themselves honored 
and admired his great-hearted wife. Statesmen 
should reflect on this lesson when they are tempted 
to give themselves up to hatred or anger. The pas- 
sions of the reaction of 1815 were futile, and the 
name of Madame de Lavalette will shine with im- 
mortal splendor in the constellation of heroines who 
did their duty, and of martyrs to devotion. 

We recently had the honor of paying our respects 
to her daughter, Josephine de Lavalette, the widow 
of Baron de Forget, — to her who, seventy years ago, 
had aided in the miraculous escape from the Con- 
ciergerie. Of all living women, she is the only one 
who took part in the events of 1815. Loved and 
respected, the Baroness of Forget lives at Paris in 



MADAME BE LAV ALETTE 371 

the house in which her mother died, No. 19, in the 
rue de La Rochefoucauld. Her large parlors are a 
museum hung with portraits and souvenirs of her 
family. Under Horace Vernet's picture of the Con- 
ciergerie at the moment of the storied escape, is 
a sword of Murad Bey's which General Bonaparte 
gave to his aide-de-camp, Lavalette, on the very 
evening of the battle of the Pyramids. It was with 
deep veneration that we saluted the worthy daughter 
of the heroine of conjugal love and the noble woman 
who in her admirable old age still preserved all the 
quickness of intelligence, every charm of conversa- 
tion, and every amiable quality of mind and heart. 

These lines were written in October, 1886. Some 
days afterward the Baroness of Forget died at Paris. 



IX 

THE BEGINNING OF 1816 

BEYOND contradiction, the year 1815 was one 
of the most terrible and dolorous in the history 
of France. On the 1st of January, 1816, the presi- 
dent of the Chamber said to the King: "Sire, your 
faithful subjects in the Chamber of Deputies wish 
you, and are preparing for you, a most happy new 
year." Little tact or cautiousness was shown in 
these laconic words, and the King thought that there 
was a certain air of patronage about them. The year 
1816 opened in the midst of a complete reaction 
which Louis XVIIL, more moderate than those by 
whom he was surrounded, sought in vain to suppress. 
There were no such ideas of pacification, conciliation, 
and clemency as had marked the beginning of the 
first Restoration. The second was as ruthless as the 
first had been benignant. The passions of the ultra- 
royalists knew no bounds. The aristocratic salons 
of Paris were notorious for their hate and bitterness. 
The escape of Lavalette had made them insane. 

Debate on the amnesty bill was opened in the 
Chamber on the 2d of January. Li spite of the King, 
the regicides who had taken any part whatsoever in 
372 



THE BEGINNING OF 1816 373 

the events of the Hundred Days, were added to the 
list of the proscribed. This measure was carried at 
the session of the 6th of January through the influ- 
ence of General de Bethisy, a former officer in the 
army of Conde, who exclaimed : " Gentlemen, never 
permit yourselves to forget that the motto of our 
fathers was : Right, Honor, and the King. And if 
inflexible honor impels us for an instant to go beyond 
the King's wishes ; and if, displeased at his faithful 
servants when he sees them oppose his royal and 
pious clemency, he for a moment shall turn aside 
from US that kindly regard, which is our highest 
reward, we will say with the people of the west and 
with the noble soldiers of the throne and altar whose 
love for the Bourbons nothing can change : ' Long 
live the King when he is himself ! '" 

The anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI., 
instead of recalling the words of pardon written in 
the martyred King's will, inspired the ultra-royalists 
with what they called a sacred wrath. Clemency 
was taxed with weakness and pusillanimity. The 
opinion that it was the King's first duty to reassure 
the good and make the wicked tremble was endlessly 
repeated. On the 9th of January, Chateaubriand 
recounted in the Chamber of Peers the events that 
had taken place since the 21st of January in the pre- 
ceding year. " How sincere," said he, " then seemed 
the repentance of some men I How gladly did the 
King pardon them ! But when their second treason 
drove us from our native soil, did they think that we 



374 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULJ&ME 

should ever be here once more to celebrate the second 
expiatory rites? They hoped nevermore to hear of 
those dead men who now bear witness against them 
before the living God. It was in order to confound 
them, that God packed within the little space of a 
year events that could hardly be crowded into an 
age ; men and things went headlong, rushing by like 
a torrent, and in France all has passed, so to say, 
between two funerals. Setting out from a tomb, we 
returned to a tomb and, of all the projects then in 
mind, not one has been carried into effect except 
that which Louis XYIII. formed in regard to the 
remains of the King, his brother." 

In the following words the author of the GrSnie du 
Christianisme then recalled the pathetic disinterments 
of 1815 : " In the opened grave, I saw, gentlemen, 
the bones of Louis XVI. together with the quicklime 
that had consumed the flesh, but which could not 
remove the traces of the crime. I saw the skeleton 
of Marie Antoinette intact under the shelter of a 
vault that had formed above her, as by miracle. The 
head alone was displaced and, in the form of that 
head (Great God !) could still be recognized the fea- 
tures which expressed at once the graciousness of a 
woman and the majesty of a queen. That, gentlemen, 
is what I saw; those are remembrances over which 
we can never shed enough of tears, and those are 
deeds which man can never expiate ! Though you 
raise in memory of those great victims a monument 
like the tombs which defy the ages in the deserts of 



THE BEGINNING OF 1816 375 

Egypt, you will not even then have done enough, 
nor would even so great a mass of stones hide from 
view the traces of blood that can never be effaced. , . . 
Religion alone can make our marks of grief equal to 
the greatness of such adversities. For that it needs 
neither magnificent pomps nor splendid mausoleums ; 
a few tears, a day of fast, an altar, a simple stone on 
which the name of the King is carved, will suffice 
him." 

At the very time when the Restoration was becom- 
ing pitiless to the valiant soldiers of France, at a 
time when the blood of the bravest of the brave was 
yet smoking, and many proscribed men were going 
into exile, the Moniteur of the 16th of January, 1816, 
published the following article, the mildness of which 
contrasted strangely with the still recent vigorous 
proceedings : " Saturday, the 20th of January, will be 
a day of general mourning throughout France. A 
great expiation will take place. Madame and all the 
Princes will go to Saint-Denis. The will of the mar- 
tyred King will be read in forty thousand churches. 
On this great and solemn occasion, may all hatreds, 
all ultra opinions, and all thoughts of ambition and 
vengeance cease ! As the price of the blood that he 
shed on the scaffold, the best of kings demands from 
the abyss of the tomb, or rather from the height of 
heaven, the reconciliation of all his children and the 
peace and happiness of France. The sons of Saint 
Louis have entered into their heritage ; be it ours to 
preserve it. They keep watch over us ; let us keep 



376 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

watch over them. The whole great family of 
Frenchmen is held in the heart of the King. The 
King should be held in the hearts of that mighty 
family." 

The final funeral solemnities of Louis XVI. and 
Marie Antoinette were celebrated on the 20th of 
January at the abbey church of Saint-Denis. Mon- 
sieur the King's brother, the Duke of Berry, the 
Prince of Conde, the Dowager Duchess of Orleans, 
and the Duchess of Bourbon were present. The 
Duchess of Angouleme was there also. The place 
she occupied was closed, and thus her sorrow was 
hidden from all eyes. It is easy to understand the 
emotions that swayed her soul when she listened to 
the solemn reading of her father's will. The cere- 
mony made a strong impression upon her. No 
place of sepulture has a more mournful grandeur 
than the abbey church of Saint-Denis. The royal 
vault of the Bourbons is the most sombre place in 
the crypt. No light enters it save from the dark 
crypt itself ; no eye can pierce into it except through 
a small grated window and by the use of a torch 
which casts only a doubtful and sinister light upon 
the interior. Those sepulchral shadows aroused most 
serious reflection in the minds of those who beheld 
them. Throughout the whole day the capital put on 
an appearance of exceptional gravity. In the even- 
ing all the theatres were closed. 

The Chambers took advantage of the anniversary 
of the 21st of January to unite in an address to the 



THE BEGINNING OF 1816 377 

King, in which terms were employed expressive of 
their horror of regicide. The address ended as fol- 
lows : " Sire, we have not fallen away from the loy- 
alty of our ancestors. So long as your illustrious 
race exists, we will be faithful to it. We will ever 
recognize as our lawful kings only the princes of 
that race on whom the law of primogeniture im- 
presses the characteristics of your race. Before God 
and man we swear that the French name shall be 
lost in oblivion rather than we be false to our 
oaths of honor ! " This address was signed by all 
the peers and all the deputies without exception, 
and they expressed their desire that it should be 
carved on a bronze tablet, together with all the sig- 
natures, and be sealed in the expiatory monument 
which they were about to decree for a public square, 
that should be called the Place du Vingt-et-un Jan- 
vier. It might be curious to note how many of the 
signatories were faithless, less than fifteen years later, 
to an oath so solemn. 

The emotion caused by the action of the two 
Chambers was still felt when an unexpected accident 
cast new lustre on the memory of Queen Marie 
Antoinette. A letter was discovered which the 
Queen had written to her sister-in-law, Madame 
Elisabeth, on the morning of the day on which she 
was executed. It began in this way: "My dear 
sister ; I write to you for the last time ; I have 
just been condemned, — not to a shameful death, 
for it is so only to criminals, — but to rejoin your 



378 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME » 

brother. Innocent like him, I hope to display the 
same firmness that he showed in his last moments. 
I am calm, as one always is whose conscience does 
not upbraid him. I greatly regret leaving my poor 
children. You know that I exist alone for them and 
for you, my good and tender sister. In what a posi- 
tion I leave you who, through your friendship, have 
sacrificed everything to be with us ! . . . Take my 
blessing to the two. I trust that some day when 
they are older they may be with you and enjoy to 
the full your tender care. . . . Let my daughter 
remember that, at her age, she should always aid her 
brother with the counsels her wider experience will 
give her and her affection may suggest ! . . . Let 
both remember that in their condition they can be 
really happy only through being united ! Let them 
follow our example ! What consolation in our mis- 
fortunes did not our friendship yield! And happi- 
ness is doubly enjoyed when it is shared with a 
friend ; and where can one find happiness more ten- 
der and more dear than in his own family ? Let my 
son never forget the last words of his father, who 
said to him expressly: 'Never seek to avenge our 
death!'" 

Nothing more touching and Christian-like can be 
imagined than the conclusion of the letter. The 
Queen wrote: "I sincerely crave God's pardon for 
all the faults I have committed since my birth. I 
hope that in His mercy He will hear my last prayers, 
and those which I have so long offered that He would 



THE BEGINNING OF 1816 379 

receive my soul in His pity and goodness. I ask par- 
don of all whom I know, and particularly of you, my 
sister, for all the trouble that I have involuntarily 
given you. I pardon all my enemies the evil they 
have wrought. I bid adieu to my aunts and all my 
brothers and sisters. I have had friends, and the 
thought of being forever separated from them is one 
of my heaviest regrets in dying; let them be assured 
that I thought of them till my last moment." 

When Marie Antoinette had ended this pathetic 
letter, she covered it with kisses and tears, and sent 
it to Bault, the keeper of the prison, begging him 
to transmit it to Madame Elisabeth. The keeper 
did not dare to comply with this request, and took 
the letter to Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecu- 
tor, who, instead of sending it to its destination, 
confiscated and added it to the documents of the 
trial. After the 9th Thermidor, the Conventionist 
Courtois, who was intrusted with the examination 
of Robespierre's papers, found among them this 
memorable letter, of whose existence no one yet 
knew, and, ill February, 1816, when M. Courtois's 
house was searched, it was discovered by the gov- 
ernment agents. Louis XVIII. decided that on the 
22d of February, it should be formally communicated 
to the Chamber of Deputies by Count Decazes, Min- 
ister of Police, and to the Chamber of Peers by the 
Duke of Richelieu, President of the Council. As 
soon as the reading of it was ended, M. de Chateau- 
briand arose and said : " Gentlemen, it is just a 



380 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL^ME 

month since the day when you were summoned to 
Samt-Denis. There you listened to the Gospel of the 
day, — the will of Louis XVI. Four hours before 
her death Marie Antoinette wrote what you have 
but now heard. Did you notice in that letter any 
sign of weakness ? Deep in her cell, Marie Antoi- 
nette wrote to Madame Elisabeth as calmly as she 
would have written had she been surrounded with 
adoration and pomp at Versailles. The chief crime 
committed by the Revolution was the King's death, 
but the most appalling crime was the death of the 
Queen. The King preserved at least something of 
royalty amid his hardships and even to the scaffold. 
The members of the tribunal of those pretended 
judges were many ; the son of Saint Louis had 
a priest of his religion when he went to death, 
and he was not dragged there in the common cart 
of victims. But the daughter of Caesars, clad in 
rags and reduced to patching her own garments, 
insulted before an infamous tribunal by a few as- 
sassins who called themselves judges, carried to 
execution on a tumbrel, and yet always a queen! 
. . . Gentlemen, I would need the courage of that 
great writer herself to finish this recital." 

In this address M. de Chateaubriand was wrong 
in saying things that were not in accord with the 
forgiving spirit so admirably shown by the martyred 
Queen. "Twenty-three years," said he, "have 
passed since that letter was written. Those who 
took part in the crimes of that period (those of 



THE BEGINNING OF 1816 381 

them, at least, wlio have not rendered an account of 
their deeds before God) have been living in what is 
called prosperity; they have cultivated their fields 
without molestation, as if their hands were guiltless. 
The man who kept the letter of Marie Antoinette 
bought the estate of Montroisier. The very judge 
of Louis XVI. wrote a panegyric in French verse 
on M. de Malesherbes, and erected on his estate a 
monument to the defender of Louis XYI. Let us 
not admire him; rather let us weep for France. 
The inexhaustible impartiality which produces neither 
remorse nor expiation, the fact that crime may 
legally sit in judgment on virtue, shows that all is 
in disorder in the moral world, and that good and 
evil are confounded with each other. But let us 
give thanks to Providence, whose eyes are never 
withdrawn from the wicked ; he thinks that he 
escapes through revolutions ; he mounts to happiness 
and power. Generations pass ; the years roll by 
and all seems forgotten. Suddenly the vengeance 
of God meets the criminal face to face, and says, as 
it opposes his way : ' I am here ! ' In vain does the 
will of Louis XVI. offer pardon to the guilty ; they 
are bewildered ; they themselves would have torn up 
that will ; they did not desire that it should be pre- 
served. The voice of the people speaks in the voice 
of the Chamber of Deputies ; sentence is pronounced 
and, by a series of miracles, the first result of that 
sentence is the discovery of the will of the Queen." 
Marie Antoinette's letter produced a profound 



* 382 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOUL&ME 

impression on both Chambers, and it was decreed 
that each year, on the 16th of October, which was 
the anniversary of the execution, it should be read 
from church pulpits, just as Louis XVI.'s will should 
be read on the 21st of January. Every deputy and 
peer received from Louis XVIII. a fac-simile of his 
sister-in-law's letter, and each of the Chambers sent 
a deputation to the Tuileries to thank the King. 
"I am much touched," said the sovereign, "with 
the sentiments you express. In communicating to 
you the most moving document I ever read, I de- 
sired that you should share in the grief and admira- 
tion that stirred my heart." 

The deputations were then presented to the Duch- 
ess of Angouleme in her apartments. M. Lain^, 
speaking on behalf of the Chamber of Deputies, said: 
" Madame, the King has permitted us to express to 
Your Royal Highness the sentiments aroused within 
us by the letter of your august mother. Those 
noble words reawakened our grief. But that grief 
is assuaged at the sight of Your Royal Highness. 
We deemed that Marie Antoinette lived again in 
Maria Theresa : hers were the same virtues, the same 
courage ; and in seeing how the religious feelings 
of both Princesses shine brightly forth in you, our 
hearts are at rest and open once more to hope and 
consolation." Chancellor Dambray spoke to the 
same purport, in the name of the Chamber of Peers : 
"In this memorable document," said he, "we reach 
once more the prolific source of the lofty virtues, 



THE BEGINNING OF 1816 383 

the living image of which we are proud to possess. 
That sublime writing shows us also the principle 
of that touching unity that is to-day the good for- 
tune of your august family. Madame, may that 
great Queen, who was preparing our destinies while 
so tenderly thinking of yours, receive in heaven the 
respectful and admiring homage which the Chamber 
of Peers loves to pay to her memory ! " 

The Duchess of Angouleme answered briefly. Her 
adulators essayed to pretend to be more affected than 
they really were, while she struggled to conceal her 
emotion. Austere and sincere, like her soul, her 
grief was never factitious or theatrical. It would 
have seemed profane to her, had she expatiated on 
it. There is modesty in tears. 



X 

THE ASHES OF LOUIS XVII 

THE child, the king, the martyr, whom Victor 
Hugo has celebrated in an immortal ode, had 
no tomb; and while his successor ruled at the Tuile- 
ries, even the place where his own ashes reposed was 
unknown. Formal respect had been paid but now 
to the memory of his father and mother, but none in 
memory of him. Nevertheless, even in his hardships, 
he had been the Most Christian King, the King of 
France and Navarre, and, though he had never been 
anointed at Rheims, there was another sacrament — 
that of misfortune — which was his. 

On the 9th of January, 1816, Chateaubriand spoke 
as follows in the Chamber of Peers : " Gentlemen, 
I think we have omitted something. Among so 
many causes of grief our tribute of tears has not been 
paid impartially. In all that we have undertaken to 
do and have done, the infant King, the young mar- 
tyr who sang the praises of God in the fiery furnace, 
has hardly been mentioned. Should we forget him 
because he occupied so small a place in our history ? 
But how slowly did his sufferings cause his days to 
pass, and how long was his reign because of his woes ! 
384 



THE ASHES OF LOUIS XVII 385 

Did ever an aged king, weighed down by the bur- 
dens of a throne, bear so heavy a sceptre ? Did ever 
the crown press with such weight on the brows of 
Louis XIV. on his way to the grave as did the dia- 
dem of innocence on the forehead of Louis XVII. on 
his way from the cradle ? What has become of that 
royal pupil left to the tutelage of a jailor? of that 
orphan who might have said, like the heir of David : 
' My father and mother have forsaken me ' ? Where 
is the brother of the orphan of the Temple and her 
comrade in adversity? Where shall one go to ask 
him that terrible and all too well-known question : 
' Capet, dost thou sleep ? Awake 1 ' He wakes, 
gentlemen, in celestial g^lory, and he asks a tomb. 
Curses on the wretches who, this day, render so many 
reparations necessary ! Withered be the parricidal 
hand that dared to lift itself against that son of 
Saint Louis ; the King till now forgotten in our an- 
nals as he was forgotten in his prison I " 

The Chambers voted that a monument in some 
style, and on some spot selected by the King, should 
be erected in the name and at the expense of the 
nation, in expiation of the crime of the 21st of Jan- 
uary. At the same time, the following article was 
voted : " The King shall also be authorized to order, 
in the name and at the expense of the nation, the 
erection of a monument in memory of Louis XVIL, 
Queen Marie Antoinette, and Madame Elisabeth." 
At the session of the 13th of January, the Chamber 
of Deputies added the subjoined words : " And of the 



386 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME , 

Duke of Enghien," which addition was adopted by 
the Chamber of Peers. By royal ordinance Louis 
XVIII. decreed that the monuments should stand in 
the Madeleine church, the completion of which he 
also ordered. 

On the 1st of March, 1816, M. Decazes, Minister 
of Police, wrote to M. Angles, Prefect of Police : — 

" My dear Count : By the ordinance of the 14th 
of February, His Majesty decreed the place where 
the pious monument to the memory of Louis XVII. 
is to be placed. It is now necessary — and I have 
already directed your attention to the subject — to 
discover the remains of that illustrious victim of the 
Revolution. It is known that on the 8th of June, 
1795, the young King was interred in the cemetery 
of Sainte-Marguerite, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, 
in the presence of two civil commissioners and the 
commissioner of police for the Section of the Temple. 
The young King ought to be deposited in Saint- 
Denis. I request you to give me an account of the 
precise measures you have taken to this end, and 
what has been the result of them. If you have not 
already done so, it will be necessary to summon the 
commissioners and others who were present at the 
interment." 

The search was long and minute, but resulted in 
nothing. A man of the name of Decouflet, who was 
beadle of the parish of Quinze-Vingts, said that in 
1802 his friend, the gravedigger B^trancourt, alias 
Valentin, while preparing a grave in the cemetery of 



THE ASHES OF LOUIS XVII 387 

Sainte-Marguerite, pointed out to him a spot from 
which two feet of earth had been dug. The grave- 
digger uncovered a stone of the foundation-wall of 
the church, on which was a cross, and said that at 
some time there must have been a monument there, 
since the coffin of Louis XVII. was underneath. 
This gravedigger was no longer alive in 1816. The 
declarations of his widow and the witnesses of the 
inhumation were contradictory. According to some, 
a private burial-place had been chosen for the royal 
child, while others said that his corpse had been 
thi'own into the common ditch. For the rest, it was 
claimed by some people that the funeral and inter- 
ment of Louis XVII. in the cemetery of Sainte- 
Marguerite had been only simulated, and that his 
remains had been buried at the very foot of the 
tower of the Temple. (In his unpublished Memoirs 
General Count d'Andign^, who was imprisoned in the 
Temple in 1801, expresses this opinion.) Finally, 
several persons asserted that the young King's remains 
had been taken from the cemetery of Sainte-Marguerite 
to that of Clamart. 

In a letter written on the 1st of June, 1816, the 
Prefect of Police gave M. Decazes an account of the 
outcome of the search. The letter ends as follows : 
" The commissioners who had charge of the inquest 
incline to believe that if the precious remains of the 
young King are lost among those of the other dead, 
they lie in the place designated by the widow of 
B^trancourt, alias Valentin, and by Decouffet." 



388 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

No excavations were made in the cemetery. The 
day was spent in explorations. The clergy of the 
church of Sainte-Marguerite, in alb and surplice, were 
waiting for the delegate of the Minister of Police, 
when, after some hours of delay, the cur^ received 
an official letter announcing that the search must 
be abandoned. In his book on Louis XYII., M. de 
Chantelauze thus explains this sudden change : " An 
opposition, as malevolent as it was implacable, had 
already taken it in hand to cast doubts on the au- 
thenticity of the remains of Louis XVI. and Marie 
Antoinette. And not only did this opposition try to 
cast ridicule on the royal exhumations by pretending 
that only false relics had been discovered, but it 
blamed Louis XYIII. in most violent terms for evok- 
ing, with odious ostentation, the bloody spectres of 
his family. This time the opposition struck a telling 
blow. It was the dread of imprudently reawakening 
the most cruel recollections of the Terror, rather than 
any of these undefined rumors, that prevented Louis 
XVIIL, who was at once moderate, politic, and saga- 
cious, from following up the search ordered for the 
discovery of the grave of his royal nephew." 

The supposition of M. de Chantelauze does not 
seem to us quite admissible. However that may be, 
the people who asserted that Louis XVII. left the 
Temple alive, did not hesitate to say that if the 
excavations were not continued, it was because 
the son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette was 
still living. Another circumstance seemed to give 



THE ASHES OF LOUIS XVII 389 

color to their belief in the tale of the various imper- 
sonators of Louis XVII. Though he gave up the 
excavations ordered by him for the discovery of the 
remains of Louis XVIL, Louis XVIII. was desirous 
of having a formal service celebrated at the church 
of Saint-Denis in memory of the young King. Louis 
XVIII. then learned from the primate of the abbey 
of Saint-Denis that the ancient rules of the abbey 
permitted funeral services to be celebrated only for 
princes whose bodies reposed in its vaults. Accord- 
ing to M. de Chantelauze, this was why he did not 
deem it proper to proceed. 

We have already explained the reasons which lead 
us to believe that the child who died in the Temple 
was really Louis XVIL, and on this point we agree 
with the conclusions drawn by MM. de Beauchesne 
and de Chantelauze, and several times confirmed by 
judicial decisions. V/e shall always hold that by 
forbidding the excavations it once had ordered, and 
in not having funeral services for the young King 
celebrated at Saint-Denis or elsewhere, the govern- 
ment of the Restoration increased the doubts that 
were entertained by certain people. It was asked 
why a government founded on the principle of hered- 
ity should concern itself so little about Louis XVIII. 's 
immediate predecessor. 

M. de Beauchesne himself makes some melancholy 
reflections on this subject, in the place that was once 
the cemetery of Sainte-Marguerite, for the cemeteries 
crumble away like ruins, etiam periere ruince. He 



390 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

says : " Nothing saddens the heart more than the 
appearance of a forsaken cemetery. Alas ! Scarcely 
in the midst of the tumults that surround us do we 
think of those who fall at our side. It is with 
stronger reason that Ave trample with indifference on 
those who have fallen before us. It is not fifty years 
since this cemetery was closed to the dead, and now 
the living do not know the road to it. Worldly 
pleasures cover regrets as sods cover graves. No 
longer is there any trace of human foot on this grass, 
no longer a little path leading to a beloved tomb. A 
few trees have remained because they were young, 
and because their owners would not have profited 
greatly by hewing them down. Down there in the 
corner generations after generations of corpses have 
succeeded each other, for in this narrow world one 
disputes possession even when life is over, and the 
dead is driven off to make room for the dead. How 
many times within this funereal enclosure, among 
crumbling tombs and neglected shrubbery, and long 
since covered with nettles and briers, have I asked 
that terrible and all too well known question: 
' Capet, where art thou ? Awake ! ' " 

The young King's biographer adds with bitterness 
the following words : " It seems that in France there 
has been an unanimity of forgetfulness in regard to 
this cemetery. And yet it was here that the royalty 
of thirteen centuries, begun at Rheims, finished its 
career. 'Tis here that the youngest of your race 
returned to dust while your own dust was swept 



THE ASHES OF LOUIS XVII 391 

from out your tombs. But, vacant or occupied, 
your tombs still show the way you went, and one 
may read your actions in history or visit the simula- 
crum of your coffins in Saint-Denis. Nothing re- 
mains of that child, and dead, he has no stone." 
And in conclusiqn M. de Beauchesne expresses the 
regret that the sainted daughter of Louis XVI., as 
faithful to misfortune as misfortune was faithful to 
her, was unable to bring a prayer or a tear to the 
spot of earth that had consumed her brother, because 
there was no trustworthy information as to where he 
lay. 

Who shall say that at times the Duchess of Angou- 
leme was not tempted to exclaim : " But if I have 
been deceived? ... If my brother be yet alive?" 
Beyond doubt, this thought did not remain fixed in 
the mind of the unhappy Princess, but who shall say 
that it never crossed it as a vague and cruel suspicion ? 



CONCLUSION 

THE Restoration had now been in existence for 
two years, and the Duchess of Angouleme saw 
that under the gilded ceilings of palaces as in the 
dungeon of the Temple, she was condemned to a life 
of sorrow and disappointment. At the beginning of 
1816 she was still looked up to and received the hom- 
age of all. At the fete given on the 5th of February 
by the royal guards to the national guard of Paris 
she shared with the King in the enthusiastic demon- 
strations of the assemblage. In the midst of ap- 
plause she made the tour of the twelve tables that 
were decorated with escutcheons bearing the names 
of Saint Louis, Francis I., Henri IV., Louis XIV., 
Renaud, Roland, Duguesclin, Bayard, Sully, Crillon, 
Conde, and Turenne. A marshal of France or a 
lieutenant-general presided at each of the tables. 
Fifteen hundred persons attended the. fete, five hun- 
dred of whom were elegantly dressed women, who 
added greatly to the splendor of the scene. A can- 
tata was sung, the words of which were by Chevalier 
Ducis, a captain of hussars in the royal guards, and 
nephew of the celebrated poet ; the music was com- 
posed by Cherubini. 
392 



CONCLUSION 393 



At the fete given to the royal guards by the 
national guard of Paris in the hall of the Odeon, 
the pious Princess was equally the object of general 
enthusiasm. The box of the royal family, which 
was at the centre of the first tier in the gallery, was 
decorated with great magnificence. The play was an 
impromptu called CJiaeun d son tour^ ou VecJio de 
Paris. In speaking of the verses, the Moniteur 
said: "It is impossible by quoting the couplets to 
give any idea of what took place ; their happy turn, 
the choiceness of the melody, the chorus that accom- 
panied them and was loudly repeated by the audience 
amid waving plumes, the King profoundly moved, 
his family rising in response to such touching 
applause, and to devotion so spontaneous, free, and 
unanimous, — one must have seen all this, for it can- 
not be expressed in words." 

Whenever the Duchess of Angouleme appeared at 
the theatre, she was received with applause. On the 
30th of January she attended a gala representation at 
the Opera. A cantata was sung, in which the follow- 
ing lines were enthusiastically cheered : — 

" Daughter of kings, no longer fear ; 
See naught but happiness before thee ; 
The French will wipe away each tear 
They caused to flow, and will watch o'er thee." 

These fetes and adulations had no fascination for 
the daughter of Louis XVI. The pomps that sur- 
rounded her gave her no pleasure. It was not after 



394 THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

coming from the church of Saint-Denis, it was not on 
the morrow o* the anniversary of the murder of her 
father, that she could find amusement in a theatrical 
representation or a reception at court. She knew 
too well the vicissitudes of fortune to be dazzled by 
artificial prestige or be deceived by wealth and 
human grandeur. After the calamities of her family 
she felt out of place at a ball or a play. Her appear- 
ance could evoke only memories and arouse reflec- 
tions which were out of harmony with earthly joys. 
A chateau inhabited by her would have resembled 
a church rather than a palace. Even in moments of 
triumph everything contributed to her sadness. At 
the Tuileries, even on f^te days, under brilliant chan- 
deliers and amid music, she recalled the terrible 
scenes of the 20th of June and the 10th of August, 
which her uncle, Louis XVIII., had not witnessed, 
but at which she had been present. Sometimes she 
fancied she saw phantoms flitting through that fatal 
place. Nothing could distract her from her sombre 
thoughts and Christian meditations; the Tuileries 
could not make her forget the Temple, which had 
been destroyed from top to bottom and of which not 
one stone remained. She could have wished to shut 
herself up in the little room which had served her 
father as an oratory, and to revisit the chamber that 
had been occupied, first by her mother and next by 
her aunt. But no ; nothing remained, — nothing but 
the dolorous and eternal memory of it. 

The Duchess of Angouleme was not the dupe of 



CONCLUSION 395 



flatterers. They recalled the adulations given to her 
mother. She was vastly edified by the way in which 
the courtiers had gone from one party to the other. 
When officers vowed fidelity equal to every proof, 
she remembered the defection of the Bordeaux garri- 
son during the Hundred Days. That brief but 
instructive period had made her reflect bitterly on 
the fickleness of the French character. She already 
saw afar off the coming of a new revolution. The 
conduct of the government did not satisfy her. 
Louis XVIII. had placed power in hands that she 
thought neither sure nor faithful. She saw that the 
policy of the ministry was one of expedients and not 
of principles, and, had she been allowed to speak, she 
would certainly have opposed both its tendencies and 
its acts. But she made no endeavor to cause her 
ideas to prevail and, living in a world of contempla- 
tion, she made a hermit's cell of her oratory. In 
1816, though young in years, she was old in sorrow. 
One wondered that so many emotions and griefs had 
not yet whitened her hair. 

A woman grave and austere, like the Duchess of 
Angoul^me, must always inspire more veneration 
than sympathy in a society amiable, but frivolous, 
like that of Paris. While respecting and holding her 
in the highest honor, the world was only moderately 
concerned about the pious Princess. The curiosity 
that she aroused on her return to France was already 
dying away. A younger woman, gayer and more 
fond of pleasure, was desired, in order to bring relief 



396 THE BUCHESS OF ANGOULEME 

to a court that was looked upon as too sombre and 
morose. That woman was the sprightly Princess 
who was to marry the Duke of Berry. She was 
said to be full of spirit and grace, and it was regarded 
as certain that her smile would illumine the Tuile- 
ries like a ray of light. The Duchess of Angouleme 
was about to be left in an obscurity which, for that 
matter, suited her modesty and piety. Henceforth, 
the Duchess of Berry would take the first place. 
Merchants and artists knew her as a patron of arts 
and commerce. Wonderful things were said about 
her disposition, half French and half Neapolitan. 
She would bring to Paris the impulsiveness and 
vivacity of lands where the sun shines. After the 
Terror, society had an inextinguishable thirst for 
distractions and amusements, and similarly, in 1816, 
people wished to forget the misfortunes of war and 
invasion, and to make merry, now that its distress 
had departed. The Duchess of Angouleme was but 
the setting sun. The rising sun was the Duchess 
of Berry, and already the eyes of all were turned 
towards her. 



INDEX 



Abrantes,^ Duchess of, her story 
of the Emigres at Tortoni's, 75 ; 
on the character of Louis XVIII., 
85; on the Duke of Berry, 104; 
quoted, 111, 112. 

Adelaide, Princess, described by 
the Baroness of Oberkirch, 149. 

Alexander I. at Compiegne, 20 ; at 
Paris, 44; his sentiments for 
Louis XVIII., 46; takes leave of 
the King and quits Paris, 48 ; his 
partiality for Prince de Beauhar- 
nais, 46; conversation with him re- 
specting the Bourbons, 49; causes 
religious service to be held in 
the Place de la Concorde, 50. 

Angouleme, Duchess of, a woman 
of the Tuileries, 1 ; return of, to 
France, 2 et seq. ; at Compiegne, 
7; her appearance described, 13; 
entry of, with the King into Paris, 
32 et seq. ; her agitation, 37; ap- 
pearance of, at the Tuileries, 47 ; 
called Madame during the reign 
of Louis XVIII. , 108; change in 
her after the Restoration, 109; 
at the opera of CEdipe a Colone, 
110; called the New Antigone, 
110; her melancholy, 112; her 
dislike of Talleyrand, 115; the 
members of her household, 115 
et seq. ; her character and bear- 
ing described, 116 et seq. ; the 
interest of the people in, 118 ; at 
Vichy, 119 et seq. ; at Lyons, 121 
et seq. ; her virile character, 127 ; 
her visit to Versailles, 152 ; pres- 
ent at the fete of the Hotel de 
Ville, 154 ; at the Theatre Fran- 
9ais, 180; at the hospitals, 182; 



at Bordeaux, 185 ; hears of the 
landing of Napoleon, 187; or- 
dered by the King to remain at 
Bordeaux, 224; receives Baron 
de Vitrolles with the King's let- 
ter, 225; sends a letter to the 
French ambassador at Madrid, 
227; letter of, to Count de La 
Chatre, 228 et se^. ;- likeness of 
her character to that of Maria 
Theresa, 231; calls a general 
counsel, 237 ; visits the troops in 
their barracks, 238; commands 
them to resist no longer, 242; 
leaves the city, 244; proclama- 
tion of, 245; embarks on the 
Wanderer, 246; is offered an 
asylum by the King of Spain, 
246; enters London, 247; guest 
of the Count de La Chatre, 248 ; 
actively engaged in politics, 251 ; 
the objects of her mission to 
England, 252; joins the King at 
Ghent, 253 et seq. ; returns to 
England, 260; her return to 
France, 275 ; without illusions, 
276; goes with her husband to 
Bordeaux, 279; her journey a 
continuous ovation, 296; recep- 
tion of, at Toulouse, 297; talks 
of Fouche's dismissal, 298; de- 
clines to receive Fouche, 303; «» 
comes to regret the execution of 
Ney, 337; furiously repulses 
Madame de Lavalette, 349 ; depu- 
tations from the Chambers pre- 
sented to, 382. 
Angouleme, Dul^e of, at the Resto- 
ration, 99 et seq. ; not a success 
at court, 101; devoted to the 
897 



398 



INDEX 



King, 102 ; sent by the King to 
visit tlie West of France, 105; 
hears of the landing of Napo- 
leon, and is ordered to go to 
Nimes, 187; his first successes, 
248; arrested by Grouchy, 249; 
set at liberty, proceeds to Mad- 
rid, 249 ; rumors concerning, 277. 

"Antigone, the New," 110. 

Artois, Count of, a man of the old 
regime, 93; an optimist and 
under illusions, 95; his house- 
hold, 97; sent by the King to 
visit the East of France, 105; 
sent by the King to Lyons to 
arrest Napoleon's progress, 190; 
swears allegiance to the King, 
205. 

Auger eau. Marshal, meets the 
Duchess of Angouleme at Lyons, 
122, 125. 

Aumale, Duke of, heir of the Duke 
of Bourbon, 146. 

Baudus, M., conceals M. de Lava- 
lette, 359. 

Beauchesne, M. de, quoted, 390. 

Beauharnais, Prince Eugene de, 
the Czar's partiality for, 46, 48. 

Beauharnais, Emilie de, her family, 
339 ; her first meeting with Lava- 
lette, 341. 

Bellart, M., address of, as public 
prosecutor of Marshal Ney, 320. 

Bernadotte at Compiegne, 18. 

Berry, Duke of, 99 et seg. ; his 
character, 102 et seq. ; sent by the 
King to visit the North of France, 
105; his lack of tact, 106; his 
noble qualities and his death, 
107; receives in the Tuileries, 
180, 181. 

Berthier, Marshal, meets Louis 
XVIII. , 8; address of, to Louis 
XVIII. , 13. 

Beugnot, Count, quoted, 22, 209; 
his inscription on the statue of 
Henry IV., 25, 39; Memoirs of, 
quoted, 262 ; on the selection of 



Fouche as Louis XVIII. 's Minis- 
ter of Police, 201. 

Blacas, Count of, 24 ; letter of, to 
Prince of Castelcicala, 251. 

Bordeaux, reception of the Duke 
and Duchess of Angouleme in, 
186 et seq., 279; defection of the 
troops at, 238. 

Boulogne, Abbe de, sermon" of, at 
the burial of Louis XVI. at Saint 
Denis, 174, 177. 

Bourbon, Duke of, a representa- 
tive of the old regime, 141 ; his 
career, 146. 

Bourbon, Duchess of, her career, 
146 ; receives a pension from Na- 
poleon, 148. 

Bourrienne, on the King's entry 
into Paris, 39. . 

Bourmont, Marshal, a witness 
against Marshal Ney, 315, 317 
et seq. 

Brayer, General, despatch of, con- 
cerning Napoleon's landing, 189. 

Bresson, Madame, conceals Lava- 
lette in her house, 359 et seq. 

Bresson, M., 362. 

Broglie, Duke of, on the state of 
things in Paris after the landing 
of Napoleon, 200, 201; on the 
departure of the King, 220; on 
Fouche and Talleyrand, 265 ; his 

, vote for Marshal Ney's acquittal, 
323 ; on the escape of Lavalette, 
364. 

Carnot, quoted, 61. 

Castelcicala, Prince of, correspon- 
dence of, with the Count of Bla- 
cas, 251. 

Cauchy, M., reads the death-war- 
rant to Marshal Ney, 325. 

Censeur, the, quoted, 159. 

Chabrol, M. de, presents Louis 
XVIII. with the keys of Paris, 
32 ; address of, at the fete of the 
Hotel de Ville, 157. 

Chantelauze, M. de, on the opposi- 
tion to the royal exhumations, 388. 



INDEX 



399 



Chateaubriand, on the Duchess of 
Angouleme, 4; quoted, 5; de- 
scribes Louis XVIII. 's arrival at 
Compiegne, 9, 11, 13; quoted, 
28, 36; his admiration for Louis 
XVIII., 42, 44, 50 ; on society at 
the court of Louis XVIII., 54 ; on 
his cliaracter, 81, 86; his confi- 
dence in the royalist cause, 164 ; 
speech of, on the burial of Louis 
XVI. and Marie Antoinette at 
Saint Denis, 168, 171, 175; thinks 
Napoleon is to be "harried," 191; 
agrees with Marmont about bar- 
ricading Paris, 209, 211; on the 
Duchess of Angouleme at Bor- 
deaux, 254, 257, 258, 263, 264 ; on 
Fouche, 301 et seq. ,- recalls, in 
the Chamber of Peers, the events 
of 1815, 373; address of, upon 
the letter of Marie Antoinette, 
380; tribute of, to Louis XVII., 
384. 

Clausel, General, approaches Bor- 
deaux, 228, 235; carried away 
by the prestige of Napoleon, 234 
et seq. ; demands that the gates 
of Bordeaux be opened, 237 ; pays 
a tribute to the courage of the 
Duchess of Angouleme, 242. 

Compiegne, the Chateau of, 7; 
Louis XVIII. at, 8 et seq.; the 
court reconstituted at, 18. 

Conde, Prince of, a representative 
of the old regime, 141; his career, 
142 et seq.; anecdotes of him, 
144. 

Constant, Benjamin, quoted, 31, 
200; signed article of, in the 
Debats, 214. 

Court of Louis XVIIL, the, 51 et 
seq. ; functionaries of, 55. 

Cretineau-Joly, M., quoted, 105. 

Cuvillier-Fleury, quoted, 367. 

Davoust, Marshal, testifies concern- 
ing the amnesty accorded by the 
plenipotentiaries, 319. 

Decaen, General, at Bordeaux, 226 ; 



his perplexities, 233; the crowd 
clamor for his life, 243. 

Delpierre, Abbe, confesses Marshal 
Ney, 328; accompanies him to 
his execution, 330; letter describ- 
ing his interview with Madame 
Ney after the execution, 332. 

Descloseaux, preserves the memory 
of the burying-place of Louis 
XVI. and Marie Antoinette, 167. 

Domon, General, 194. 

Dupont, General, bestows military 
decorations, 59. 

Elisabeth, Madame, her character 
reflected in that of the Duchess 
of Angouleme, 114. 

Emigres, their confidence in the 
restitution of their property, 183. 

Enghien, Duke of, his birth and 
parentage, 146 et seq. ,* monu- 
ment to, 386. 

" Father Violet," nickname of Na- 
poleon, 185. 

Fievee, M., quoted, 118. 

Fouche, swears loyalty to Louis 
XVIIL at Saint Denis, 265; the 
King talks of his dismissal, 298; 
his selection as Minister of Po- 
lice urged by the royalists, 300; 
his fall, 303; marries Mademoi- 
selle de Castellane, 303; dis- 
missed, 304; made French Min- 
ister at Dresden, 304; letter of, 
to Louis XVIIL, 304; to the Duke 
of Richelieu, 305 et seq. ; stricken 
down by the law against regi- 
cides, 308. 

Francis 11. takes leave of the King, 
48. 

Ghent, Louis XVIIL at, 255 et seq. 

Gouvion, M., anecdote of, 324. 

Guizot, on Louis XVIIL, 88; on 
the court of Louis XVIIL at 
Ghent, 256; on the affair of 
Louis XVIIL and Fouche, 299; 
quoted, 310, 333 et seq. 



400 



INDEX 



Havre, Duke of, 54. 

Hortense, Queen, receives from 
Louis XVIII. the title of the 
Duchess of Saint-Leu, 148; her 
salon the Bonapartist hotbed, 
184. 

Hotel de Ville, fete of the, 154 et 
seq. ; list of ladies at, 155. 

Jacob, the bibliophile, on the Bar- 
oness de Krudener, 285. 

Josephine, death of, 47. 

Journal cles Debats on the death 
of Josephine, 48 ; quoted, 151, 
179, 192, 194, 198, 206, 212, 213; 
becomes Journal de I'Empire, 
221 ; describes the entrance of 
Napoleon into Paris, 222; lan- 
guage of, at the Second Resto- 
ration, 271, 275; report in, of 
Marshal Ney's execution, 335. 

Jouy, M. de, 70, 73. 

Krudener, Baroness de, interests 
herself in General de Labedoyere, 
284; her character and career, 
284 et seq.; first meeting with 
Labedoyere, 285; letter of, to 
Madame de Labedoyere, 286; 
visits Labedoyere in prison, 288 ; 
her reflections on his death, 295. 

Labedoyere, General de, the era 
of vengeance inaugurated by the 
execution of, 278, 281 et seq.; 
arrest of, 283; his family, 283; 
the Baroness de Krudener inter- 
ests herself in, 284; before the 
council of war, 289 ; his defence, 
290 ; condemnation of, 291 ; let- 
ter of, to his mother, 292; his 
will, 293. 

Labedoyere, Madame de, intercedes 
for her husband, 286 ; is repulsed 
by the King, 294. 

La Chatre, Count de, letter of the 
Duchess of Angouleme to, 228; 
Duchess of Angouleme the guest 
of, in Loudon, 248, 250. 



Lafayette, M. de, conversation of, 
with Alexander I. , 49. 

Lamartine on the personal appear- 
ance of Louis XVIII., 76; an 
enthusiastic royalist, 77, 95; on 
the Count of Artois, 98; on the 
attitude of the great ladies dur- 
ing Marshal Ney's trial, 321; 
describes Ney's guards, 327 ; cen- 
sures the murder of Marshal Ney, 
334. 

Lavalette, Count de, 338 et seq.; 
his marriage to Emilie de Beau- 
harnais, 339; his career under 
Napoleon, 342 ; arrest of, 344; 
sentenced, 347 ; plan of his escape, 
353 et seq. ; escape of, 357 et seq. ; 
his hiding-place, 359; remains 
hidden with the Bressons, 366; 
escapes to Belgium, 367; quota- 
tion from his Memoirs, 368; his 
daughter, 369. 

Lavalette, Madame de, importunes 
the King for her husband's par- 
don and is refused, 349 ; proposes 
to her husband to escape in her 
clothes, 353; loses her reason, 
366, 368. 

Lavalette, Josephine de, her trials 
at school, 369; death of, as the 
Baroness de Forget, 371. 

Legitimists, jealousy of, the, 62. 

Lettres du Cousin et de la Cousine, 
70. 

Louis XVI., body of, exhumed and 
buried at Saint Denis, 168 et seq. ; 
monument erected to, 170; final 
funeral solemnities of, celebrated, 
376. 

Louis XVII., monument of, 385; 
search for his grave, 386. 

Louis XVIII. , return of, to France, 

2 et seq. ; his progress to Paris, 

3 et seq. ; remarks of, at Com- 
piegne, 7 et seq. ; his reply to 
Marshal Berthier, 14; his polite- 
ness to the officers of the army, 
16; receives Talleyrand, 20; in- 
terview of, with Alexander I., 



INDEX 



401 



20; entry of, into Paris, 32 et 
seq.; at Notre-Dame, 34; at the 
Tuileries, 38, 51; his court, 52; 
his household, 55 ; and the peti- 
tions of old royalists, 70; his part 
in Lettres du Cousin et de la 
Cousine, 70 ; his personal appear- 
ance as described by Lamartine 
and others, 76 et seq. ; his char- 
acter and intelligence, 80 et seq. ; 
his belief in royalty, 87 ; founded 
the throne on moderate princi- 
ples, 89 ; his life at the Tuileries, 
91; his exercise, 92; at the fete 
of the Hotel de Ville, 156 et seq. ; 
attends the ceremony of the dis- 
tribution of the flags, 1.61 et seq. ; 
attends the opera and theatre, 
179 et seq. ; receives the news of 
Napoleon's landing, 189; sends 
the Count of Artois to Lyons, 
190 ; cheered by the National 
Guard, 193 ; calls a session of the 
Chambers, and proclaims Bona- 
parte a rebel, 191; proclamation 
of, 197 ; his speech to the Cham- 
bers, 202 et seq. ; declares his in- 
tention to remain at the Tuil- 
eries, 210 ; but refuses to turn it 
into a fortress, 211 ; reviews his 
military household, 215; leaves 
Paris, 219 et seq. ; summons the 
Duke of Orleans to Ghent, 252 ; 
his residence and habits at Ghent, 
255 et seq. ; his. phantom minis- 
try there, 256 ; returns to France, 
264; at Saint Denis, 265; enters 
Paris, 266; his escort, 267; ill at 
ease, 269, 272 ; his clemency, 273 ; 
refuses to pardon Labedoyere, 
294; letter to, from Fouche, de- 
nouncing the Duke and Duchess 
of Angouleme, 304; refuses to 
pardon Lavalette, 349; address 
to, by the Chambers, Jan. 21, 
1816, 377 ; sends to the Chambers 
the letter of Marie Antoinette, 
379 ; deputations from the Cham- 
bers to, 382. 



Louise, Marie, the Archduchess, at 
Aix-les-Bains, 126. 

Maison, General, in command of 
French troops at Ghent, 258. 

Malouet and the story of the old 
naval officer, 69. 

Marie Antoinette, body of, ex- 
humed and buried at Saint Denis, 
168 et seq., 376 ; monument erected 
to, 170, 386 ; discovery of a letter 
of, written on the day of her 
execution to Madame Elisabeth, 
377. 

Marmont, Marshal, meets Louis 
XVIII. at Compiegne, 10, 16; 
describes Louis XVIII. 's Bour- 
bon pride, 42 ; criticises the mili- 
tary household of the King, 57 ; 
his description of Louis XVIII., 
78, 84; compares the Dukes of 
Berry and Angouleme, 104; on 
the infirmities of Louis XVIII., 
109 ; proposes to the King to put 
the Tuileries and the Louvre in 
a state of defence, 208 ; allows 
Madame de Lavalette to go to 
the Tuileries, 347, 351; Memoirs 
of, quoted, 349; on the violent 
passions of the court ladies, 352. 

Martignac, M. de, sent from Bor- 
deaux to confer with General 
Clausel, 236; asks for a further 
delay, 237. 

Metternich, Prince, quoted, 88. 

Moncey, Marshal, meets Louis 
XVIII. with congratulations, 5; 
refuses to take part in the coun- 
cil of war to try Marshal Ney, 
312. 

Monsieur, see Count of Artois. 

Moniteur, the, describes the parade 
of the allied troops, 41; quoted, 
100 ; on the Duchess of Angouleme 
at Vichy, 119 et seq. ; quoted, 
163; respecting the burial of 
Louis XVI. at Saint Denis, 175 ; 
gives first news of Napoleon's 
landing to the Parisians, 190; 



402 



INDEX 



quoted, 197, 205, 216 ; Sauvo, ed- 
itor of, 268; on the movements 
of the allied sovereigns, 270. 

Moreau, Madame, at Paris after 
the Restoration, 66. 

Mortier, Marshal, cannot condemn 
Marshal Ney, 312. 

I^ain Jaune, the, 182; on Napo- 
leon's return, 197. 

Napoleon at Elba, 40. 

Napoleon, lands at Elba, 40 ; on a 
free press, 88 ; calls the Duchess 
of Angouleme ' ' the only man in 
her family," 127; pensions the 
mother of the Duke of Enghien, 
148; first news of his landing, 
185, 189; enters Paris, 221. 

Napoleon's Marshals, sentiments 
of, under the Restoration, 60. 

Nettem'ent, M. Alfred, quoted, 176. 

Ney, meets Louis XVIII. at Com- 
piegne, 10; compares him with 
Napoleon, 11 ; expected to arrest 
the progress of Napoleon, 197; 
goes over to Napoleon, 207 ; should 
have been pardoned by the King, 
in M. Guizot's opinion, 310 ; with- 
draws from Paris, 311 ; arrest of, 
311 ; ferocity of the great ladies 
against, 313; his fury of indig- 
nation against Marshal Bour- 
mont, 316; counted on the pro- 
tective nature of the capitulation, 
320 ; conviction of, 322 ; receives 
his death-warrant, 325 ; bids fare- 
well to his family, 326 ; his exe- 
cution, 331; the expiation of his 
murder in 1848, 335. 

Ney, Madame, at the Tuileries to 
beg for her husband's life, 329. 

Oberkirch, Baroness of, quoted, 

149. 
(Edipe a Colone, opera of, the court 

at the, 110. 
Orleanism, the birth of, 137. 
Orleans, Duchess of, her return to 

Paris, 132, 133; her salon, 136; 



not at harmony with the Duch- 
ess of Angouleme in London, 
252. 

Orleans, the Dowager Duchess of, 
134 ; receives a pension from Na- 
poleon, 148. 

Orleans, Duke of, at Palermo, 129; 
goes to Paris, 130, 131; his ca- 
reer, 135; disliked by the King 
and by the royalists, 137; his 
double character, 139 et seq. ; the 
representative of the new ideas, 
141 ; sent by the King to Lyons, 
190; suspected of ambitious de- 
signs, 251; refuses to obey the 
King's summons to come to 
Ghent, 252. 

Paris, aspects of, under the Resto- 
ration, 64 et seq. 

Polastron, Countess of, her death, 
and the influence over the Count 
of Artois, 97. 

Pozzo de Borgo urges the King to 
return to Paris quickly, 264, 265. 

Prussia, King of, at Paris, 43. 

Puymaigre, Count of, his descrip- 
tion of Louis XVIII. 's court, 51 ; 
quoted, 65; on the Prince of 
Conde, 144; quoted, 184; on the 
sentiments of the army in Paris 
on the return of Napoleon, 193 
et seq. ; quoted, 215. 

Recamier, Madame de, salon of, 
after the Restoration, 66. 

Remusat, Madame de, on the blood- 
thirsty speeches of the great la- 
dies against Marshal Ney, 313. 

Remusat, M. de, on the escape of 
Lavalette, 365. 

Restoration, the Second, 262 et seq.; 
the proscribed of, 277. 

Richelieu, Duke of, letters to and. 
from the, and Fouche, 305; the 
prosecutor of Marshal Ney, 314. 

Saint-Ouen, Declaration of, 24. 
Sauvo submits to VitroUes articles 



INDEX 



403 



for the Moniteur Offieiel, 218; 
reinstated as editor of the Mon- 
iteur, 268. 

Savary, 40. 

Schwarzeiiberg, Prince, fete of, 46. 

Soult, Marshal, his pronounced 
royalist tendencies, 165 ; says he 
can rely on the army, 182 ; proc- 
lamation of, to the army on 
Napoleon's landing, 193. 

Spanish troops asked for by the 
Duchess of Angouleme, 227. 

Spectaior,the story in, told by Louis 

xvm., 7. 

Stael, Madame de, her impressions 
on returning to France, Metseq.; 
on society after the Restoration, 
52 et seq., 61, 64; salon of, 66; 
quoted, 74, 153 ; on the obsequies 
of Louis XVL, 177 ; thanked by 
the King for a copy of Necker's 
defence of Louis XVL, 180; on 
the landing of Napoleon, 188, 190; 
pays her respects to the King 
after Napoleon's landing, 195 ; 
her comments on the return from 
Elba, 196. 

Talleyrand meets Louis XVIII. at 
Compiegne, 19; and the Prince 
of Conde, anecdote of, 145 ; Fouche 
meets Louis XVIII. at Saint 
Denis, 264; appointed Grand 
Chamberlain, 304. 

Talleyrand, Madame, sings hymns 
to the Bourbons, 29. 

Thiers, M., on Louis XVIII. 's ap- 



pearance, 79; on the Duke of 
Orleans and the Orleanists, 138. 

Trognan, M., quoted, 132, 136. 

Tuileries, Louis XVIII. and his 
court at, 51. 

Vaulabelle, M. de, quoted, 117, 138. 

Vichy, the Duchess of Angouleme 
at, 119 et seq. 

Viel Castel, Baron, on Napoleon's 
companions-in-arms, 17 ; quoted, 
116, 137, 250; on the proscrip- 
tions of the Second Restora- 
tion, 278 ; testifies to the ferocity 
against Marshal Ney, 313. 

Villenoisy, Captain de, faithful to 
the King, 240. 

Vitrolles, Baron de, quoted, 18, 20, 
23, 27, 35, 39, 43, 58 ; his account 
of the petitioners for rank, 69, 
his Lettres du Cousin et de la 
Coiisine, 70; his description of 
Louis XVIII., 79; sends Louis 
XVIII. a despatch containing the 
news of the landing of Napoleon, 
189; quoted, 210,^216; sent by 
the King to Bordeaux, 217, 218; 
delivers the King's letter to the 
Duchess of Angouleme, 225; on 
the proposal as to the Spanish 
troops, 227; on the reception of 
the King in Paris, 268, 298, 300. 

Wellington, the Duke of, at Ghent, 

257. 
Wilson, Sir Robert, aids Lavalette 

to escape, 367. 



Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston. 
Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston. 



FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE 
FRENCH COURT. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS. 



r^URING the past two years the publishers have issued 
-*-^ translations often of M. Imbert de Saint- Amand's histori- 
cal works, relating to the momentous and agitated period dating 
from the beginnings of the French Revolution to the seating 
of Louis XVIIL on the throne of his ancestors after the battle 
of Waterloo. Of these three have had as a nucleus the historic 
portion of the life of Marie Antoinette, three that of the life of 
Josephine, and four are devoted to the events centring around 
the figure of the Empress Marie Louise. The success of these 
works has been so unequivocal from the first, that the pub- 
lishers have begun the issue of the important volumes of M. 
de Saint-Amand's series relating to the period immediately- 
following the Napoleonic era, the period of the Restoration. 
Of this period the author's "famous women of the French 
Court" are the Duchess of Angouleme and the Duchess of 
Berry. Like their predecessors these volumes are largely- 
biographical and possess the lively interest belonging to 
personality, but, as before also, they are equally pictures of 
the times to which they relate, and are largely made up of 
contemporary memoirs and letters and original documents. 

The period itself, though on account of its proximity to 
the era of France's most stirring annals and greatest glory it 
has been overshadowed in popular imagination, is one of the 
greatest interest, and, in fact, the first two volumes largely 



FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT. 

relate to the Imperial epoch, viewed from the side of the 
Royalist emigres. The story of the exiled Bourbons and their 
adherents during these days has rarely been told, and 
especially novel and interesting is the account, from the inside^- 
of the panic and flight of the king and his party at the time of 
the dramatic return from Elba. The exile at Ghent followed, 
then Waterloo and the second return of the Bourbons this 
time exasperated and vindictive, the trials and execution of 
General Labddoy^re and Marshal Ney, the escape of Lavalette, 
the reconstitution of society as it settled into grooves of peace 
after so many years of war, the assassination of the Duke of 
Berry, the Ministry of the Duke Decazes, and the political 
conduct of the close of Louis XVIII. 's reign. 

Of this period the Duchess of Angouleme at first and then 
the Duchess of Berry were the salient feminine figures. The 
former notably was a woman of force and influence, besides 
exercising authority as the daughter of Louis XVL and Marie 
Antoinette, and arousing interest and sympathy for the 
sufferings of her early life when she was a prisoner in the 
Temple and was successively bereft of her father, mother, 
autit, and brother. No children having been born of her 
marriage with her cousin, the son of the future Charles X., the 
eyes of the Court and nation were turned toward the lively and 
charming Duchess of Berry after her union with the younger 
brother of the Duke of Angouleme, the union from which 
sprang the late Count of Chambord, and the more sprightly 
and adventurous Neapolitan succeeded her graver sister-in-law 
as the centre of Court society. Of both these contrasting and 
interesting personalities, as well as of a score of others 
influential at this time, M. de Saint-Amand has drawn most 
speaking portraits, and added to the historical value of his 
books a very great biographic interest. 



FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT. 



VOLUMES PREVIOUSLY ISSUED. 



THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth., $3-75 ; half calf , $7.50. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD REGIME. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. 

In this series is unfolded the tremendous panorama of political events in 
which the unfortunate Queen had so influential a share, beginning with the days 
immediately preceding the Revolution, when court life at Versailles was so gay- 
and unsuspecting, continuing with the enforced journey of the royal family to 
Paris, and the agitating months passed in the Tuileries, and concluding with 
the abolition of royalty, the proclamation of the Republic, and the imprisonment 
of the royal family — the initial stage of their progress to the guillotine. 

THREE VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. 

Each -with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75 ; half calf $7.50. 
CITIZENESS BONAPARTE. 
THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL. 
THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. 

The romantic and eventful period beginning with Josephine's marriage, com- 
prises the astonishing Italian campaign, the Egyptian expedition, the coup 
d''Hat of Brumaire, and is described in the first of the above volumes, while the 
second treats of the brilliant society which issued from the chaos of the Revolu- 
tion, and over which Madame Bonaparte presided so charmingly, and the third 
of the events between the assumption of the imperial title by Napoleon and the 
end of 1807 including, of course, the Austerlitz campaign. 

FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. 
Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set., in box, cloth, $5.00; half calf , $10.00. 

THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE. 

MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE. 

MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814. 

MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS. 

The auspicious marriage of the Arch-duchess Marie Louise to the master of 
Europe ; the Russian invasion with its disastrous conclusion a few years later ; 
the Dresden and Leipsic campaign ; the invasion of France by the Allies and 
the marvelous military strategy of Napoleon in 1814, ending only with his 
defeat and exile to Elba ; his life in his little principality ; his romantic escape 
and dramatic return to France ; the preparations of the Hundred Days ; 
Waterloo and the definitive restoration of Louis XVIII, closing the era begun 
in 1789, with " The End of the Old Regime," are the subjects of the four 
volumes grouped around the personality of Marie Louise. 



FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT. 

VOLUMES ON THE RESTORATION PERIOD. 
Each with Portrait, iitno^ cloth^ $1.25 ; half calf, $2.50. 

THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 

The period covered in this first of the volumes devoted to the Restoration, 
begins with the life of the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette im- 
prisoned in the Temple after the execution of her parents, and ends with the 
accession of Louis XVIIL after the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. 
The events described are the last days of the Terror, and the adventures of the 
exiled Royalists during the Consular and Imperial epoch. 

♦THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS. 

The first Restoration, its illusions, the characters of Louis XVIIL, of his 
brother, Monsieur, afterwards Charles X., of the Dukes of AngoulSme and 
Berry, sons of the latter, the life of the Court, the feeling of the city, 
Napoleon's sudden return from Elba, the heroic efforts of the Duchess of 
Angouleme to stem the tide of imperialism, the Hundred Days from the 
Royalist side, the second Restoration, and the vengeance taken by the new 
government on the Imperialists, form the subject matter of this volume. 

THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVIII. {In Press.) 

Immediately upon her marriage with the Duke of Berry the Neapolitan 
princess Caroline became the central figure of the Court of Louis XVIIL, an 
account of the main portion of whose reign, rendered eventful by the assassina- 
tion of the Duke of Berry, the birth of the Count of Chambord, heir to the 
throne and the last of the French Bourbons, the war with Spain, and the 
political struggle between liberalism and absolutist tendencies. 

*** OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. 



*'In these translations of this interesting series of sketches, we 
have found an unexpected amount of pleasure and profit. The 
author cites for tis passages from forgotten diaries^ hitherto un- 
earthed letters^ extracts from public proceedings^ and the like^ and 
contrives to combine and arrange his material so as to 77take a great 
many very vivid and pleasing picttires. Nor is this all. The 
material he lays before us is of real value^ and much^ if not most 
of it, must be unknown save to the special sttidents of the period. We 
can, therefore, cordially commend these books to the attention of our 
readers. They will find them attractive in their arrangement, 
never dull, with jnuch variety of scene and incident, and admirably 
translated.'''' — The Nation, of December 19, 1890. 








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